LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

"^^ 

Shelf J&&6 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL 



IN ITS RELATION TO 



PLANTS AND BUSINESS. 



A BOOK OF OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS FOR THE 
USE OF SCHOOLS, STUDENTS, AND FARMERS. 



/ 

CHARLES BARNARD, 

AUTHOR OF "TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER," ETC. 



The success or failure of our farmers affects the price of bread 
on all our tables, and we cannot say we do not care for these 
things. Whatever is good for the farmer to kn ow is go od for 
all to know. 




BOSTON: 
CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 

117 FRANKLIN STREET. 
1886. 



Copyright, 1886, 
By RAND, AVERY, & CO. 



*>** 

^ 



n^ 






CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Introduction ix 

CH AFTER I. 

THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 

I. The First Observations. II. The Bones of the World. 

III. Surface Indications 1-12 

CHAPTER II. 

THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 

IV. The Soil-makers. V. Weathering. VI. The Soil Movers 
and Sorters. VII. Plants and Living Creatures as Soil- 
makers 13-35 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 

VIIL Organic and Inorganic. IX. Experiments with Soils . 36-47 

CHAPTER IV. 
KINDS OF SOILS. 

X. Sand and Clay. XL Experiments with Sand and Clay. 

XII. Sand Soils and Clay Soils 48-60 

iii 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. page 

THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 
XIII. The Elements. XIV. Soil Analysis 61-71 

CHAPTER VI. 

IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 

XV. Taming the Land. XVI. Tillage. XVII. An Ancient 

Tool. XVIII. Experiments in Tillage 72-95 

CHAPTER VII. 

M ANUS — A HAND. 

XIX. An Old Fable. XX. Fertilizers. XXI. Plants as Fer- 
tilizers. XXII. What to do 96-116 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 

XXIII. Potting Soils. XXIV. Making New Soils . . . 117-127 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



Headquarters of the C. T. C. C, 

Houghton Farm, Mountainville, Orange County, 
New York, 1886. 

The Chautauqua Town and Country Club is a 
branch of the Chautauqua University, and is devoted to 
the practical study of plants and animals, horticulture 
and agriculture. Its course of instruction extends over 
two years, and includes the reading of the four books 
forming this series, and the performance of a number 
of experiments and easy studies with plants and ani- 
mals. This is the second book of the required course 
of reading, and is to be read by all members during the 
first winter of the class to which they belong. For full 
particulars concerning the course of instruction, ad- 
dress Miss Kate F. Kimball, secretary of the C. L. S. C, 
Plainfield, N. J. 

This book was prepared at the Club Headquarters ; 
and all the experiments here described have been made 



vi PRE FA TOR Y NO TE. 

the subject of study in the experimental department 
of the farm, under the immediate superintendence of 
Major Henry E. Alvord, manager of Houghton 
Farm. 

THE AUTHOR. 



TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CHAUTAUQUA 
TOWN AND COUNTRY CLUB. 



This book, entitled "Talks about the Soil," is the 
second of our required course of reading. We all 
join in reading this book at least once during the 
first winter we are members of the club. As in our 
first book, so in this, you will find a number of novel 
and instructive experiments and observations. You 
cannot fail to learn something from each, and you are 
all earnestly requested to try as many of the experi- 
ments as possible. 

The examination papers that will be sent to you 
after reading this book will include a few questions 
that can be answered only by trying the experiments ; 
and you will find it of advantage to try as many as 
possible in order that you may win our Chautauqua 
diploma when you graduate. Trusting you will find 
the book of interest and use to you, and that it will 
help you in taking one more step towards obtaining 
your diploma, I am 

Sincerely your friend, 

CHARLES BARNARD, 
Superintendent of Instruction, C. T. C. C. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The world is a great book, and he who walks or 
rides may read. We cannot get inside the earth ; and 
so it happens we do not know positively how it looks 
within the thin crust on which we live, nor can we, 
except in a very uncertain way, know of what the in- 
terior is made or in what condition it may be. This 
is not of much consequence ; because the outside of 
the world, the part we call the ground, and the things 
upon it, are quite enough to take all our attention. 
Upon the surface of the world are the great seas, the 
mountains, the plains and rivers ; and among these 
things we spend our lives. It is not very convenient 
to get off the ground, except for a few hours in a 
balloon : so it happens we must at all times remain on 
the surface of this great and wonderful book called the 
Earth or the World. We might board a steamer, and 
sail upon the sea, and soon lose sight of the land, 
and yet all the time we would be comparatively near 
the ground. Beneath the deepest seas is still the solid 
ground ; and the ship merely floats above the crust of 
the earth, upon the water. In a few places, men in 



X INTRODUCTION. 

search of coals or metals have opened deep holes 
in the ground. We might go down into one of these 
mines, in the hope of finding out something concern- 
ing the inside of the world ; but we should find it so 
uncommonly dark that not a thing could be seen. 
We may carry a lamp ; but its feeble light only shows 
rough rocks or glistening coal, looking precisely like 
the rocks and coals we have seen on the hillsides. 
We stand still a while in the gloom of the mine, and 
listen, in the hope we may hear some sound from the 
interior of the earth that may tell us what is going 
on there : there is nothing, — nothing save intense 
blackness, awesome stillness, deep, profound, and ter- 
rifying. We may be glad to escape up the elevator to 
the sunshine, well content to spend our lives upon the 
solid ground. A trip in a balloon is quite as unsatis- 
factory. The sky seems just as high ; the stars, the 
sun, and the moon are no nearer; and, if we look 
down, we find the ground extends in every direction 
till it is lost in the distance, — blue, indistinct, im- 
mense. The air is thin and cold, and we may be 
glad when the balloon voyage is safely over, and we 
are once more on the good, old-fashioned ground. 

So, it appears, we have to spend our whole lives 
upon one of the planets ; and as we cannot get inside 
of it, and cannot get away from it, we are really pris- 
oners on the outside or surface of the great star called 
Earth. The air is cold and thin, the caves and mines 
are dismal and dangerous. We do not care to stay 
either above or below the ground ; and, though we are 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

prisoners upon it, we may be very well satisfied. On 
the ground stand our homes ; out of the ground come 
our food and clothing, fruits, flowers, grain, wood, 
precious metals, coal, gas, iron, and all else that goes 
to make our lives worth living. Out of this same 
ground we stand upon, comes all wealth of every kind. 
Certainly it is well worth our time and labor to study 
this stony surface of the earth. If the ground is the 
source of so many good things, we ought to be well 
acquainted with it, that we may learn to win from 
it more food, more clothing, more wealth of every 
kind. 

One of the first things we observe in looking at the 
ground is, that it is in almost every place covered with 
plants. These plants we see are good, some for food, 
some for useful woods, some for materials for clothing, 
and others are excellent foods for birds and animals. It 
is through these plants we gain wealth from the ground. 
We have already, in the first book of this series of 
Chautauqua Talks, made a number of observations and 
experiments, that we might learn something of the 
relations of the earth and the sun to living plants. 
We examined the effects of the movements of the 
earth upon plants ; we studied the effects of light and 
darkness, the changes of the seasons, the winds and 
rains, and learned much that is of value in caring for 
useful plants of all kinds. We have now to consider 
the home of plants, the soil in which they live and 
grow. We shall in this book, as in the other, make 
experiments with real things, and thus learn by direct 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

personal observations of nature. We shall learn why 
and how the soil in which plants grow was made, by- 
observing the work still going on about us every day. 
We shall endeavor to find out for ourselves what the 
soil really is, by trying experiments with it to see how 
it behaves under certain circumstances. We shall also 
look at the different kinds of soils, to see which is 
best suited to our different plants ; and thus save our- 
selves from the mistake of planting cranberries on a 
rocky hillside, and watermelons in a peat-bog, or hunt- 
ing for violets on a sand-bank, or pond-lilies on a 
mountain-side. We shall see that while there are trees 
in every State and Territory, these trees are different 
in different places, and that this difference depends in 
part upon the ground in which the trees stand. We 
shall see that it is not sufficient to learn from our 
observations of the sun, the wind, and rain, how plants 
are affected by the weather. We must know more. 
We must learn how plants feed, and where they get 
the food they need. It is not enough to learn from 
our first observations, where to place our garden, and 
how to arrange our plants in a sunny window. We 
must know how to select the right soil for the garden, 
and how to treat it, and how to prepare the soil in our 
flower-pots ; or all our studies and observations will be 
so many half- facts, — good as far as they go, yet not 
going far enough. It is to these new studies, experi- 
ments, and observations, we now advance, remember- 
ing all we learned before, and using our knowledge to 
explain much that may seem new and strange. 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

When we come to look at the ground closely, we 
soon learn that it rests upon masses of rocks and 
stone. Some of these stones are very hard; others 
are very beautiful, such as the rosy granites, the varie- 
gated marbles, and the blue slates. These, we see, are 
capital building-materials. Other stones are not so 
beautiful, and make good foundation-stones for our 
houses ; others are soft, like soapstone ; others split 
into thin slabs suitable for flagstones ; others can be 
heated, and will melt, giving iron, copper, and other 
metals. In still other stones, gold and silver are found. 
Some stones will burn, some with a bright flame, 
others with much smoke ; and we call these stones 
coals. All of these various stones form, with many 
others, the crust or outside of the earth ; and they are 
often of great value. At the same time, we must 
observe here a distinction. The places where these 
granites, slates, soapstones, marbles, and other stones 
are blasted, cut, or dug out of the ground, are called 
quarries. The deep places where the ore-stones and 
crude metals are obtained are mines. These mines 
and quarries give us these valuable stones and metals, 
and so give us wealth. The work of getting them, or, 
as it is called, of winning them, is the art of mining 
and the art of quarrying. While we intend to study 
the ground, these lines of work would only lead us 
far astray. We are to study the top, or the immedi- 
ate surface, of the ground; and the art of gathering 
wealth from this thin skin or outside of the ground, 
we call agriculture. We are to begin by studying the 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

rocks, not as quarrymen or miners, but as farmers and 
gardeners. From the rocks come all the soils. Thus 
it is true the world is a great stone picture-book, and 
he or she who has eyes to see can learn to read its 
wonderful pages. We cannot leave the book, as long 
as we live ; we walk over its pages every day, and this 
ought to make us eager to understand it. It is a book 
full of wonders, full of strange and curious things; 
-and, while men have been reading this book of the 
world for thousands of years, they have never found 
the end of the delightful story. 



TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 



I. THE FIRST OBSERVATIONS.— We each of 
us live in a house. It may be a house in a city, 
and one of a block, or it may stand quite alone in the 
open country. Perhaps we have only one or two 
rooms in a hotel or apartment-house. It may be 
only a log house with one door and two windows. 
Whatever it is, we call it our home, the place where 
we live. We see that it is made of wood or stone, 
bricks, iron, marble, or other materials ; and we know 
that some one put these together to make our dwell- 
ing. We know it is an artificial structure. It was not 
found all finished like a smooth bowlder in the fields, 
neither did it grow out of the ground like a tree. 
We look about the house, and very soon find it is 
resting on something. We can even go into the cellar, 
and find the very base of the whole thing. Under 
the house, whether it is in town or country, is the 
ground ; and this we recognize was not made by men. 



2 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

We go outside the house, and find that the ground on 
which our home stands extends in every direction as 
far as we can see. To learn the truth concerning any 
natural object, we must study it, look at it from every 
side. Here is a natural object, immense in extent, 
of extraordinary variety in point of form, color, and 
quality. Let us leave our houses, which are only artifi- 
cial affairs, and of less interest, and examine this great 
natural object, — the ground. 

Perhaps we live in New York City, say in a cross 
town street below Central Park. We start out upon 
an exploring expedition, determined to take a good 
look at the world, and see what we can learn about 
it. Not very promising at first sight. Smooth flat 
stones on the walk, rough oblong stones in the street. 
W 7 e see at once that this is all artificial, and that the 
real earth is covered up out of sight. We walk on in 
either direction, and perhaps soon find a place where 
the street has been torn up for repairs, or where a 
cellar is being prepared for a house. Nothing but 
gray stones, glistening here and there with specks of 
silvery mica. Then the ground beneath the streets 
and houses is rock. That is one bit of truth. Is it 
the whole truth ? Walk or ride down town as- far as 
Astor Place, and then look about for a place where the 
roadway or a cellar is opened. Here is something 
very different. There are no stones to be seen ; and 
in place of steam drills and blasting-powder to break 
open the hard rocks, the workmen here use shovels to 
dig up the loose yellow sand. If the cellar is deep, 



THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 3 

we see the sand is laid in layers and curious streaks 
and lines, and that it appears to extend to an indefi- 
nite depth. We have learned another truth : The 
ground is rough rock that splits into irregular slabs, or 
is loose sand. We have not travelled a mile, and 
already we have learned two facts. We have also 
learned that one observation was not enough. The 
second observation showed that we should be entirely 
wrong if we concluded, from the first observation, that 
the entire world was made of splintery rock full of 
sparkling mica. It is clear we must go on, or make 
still another mistake. Already we have learned a 
good rule in observing nature : The whole truth is 
found only after many observations. 

If you live in Chicago, or Portland, Me., or Port- 
land, Ore., or in some other place, look about in the 
streets, — or if your home is in the country, around 
the house, — and make four observations, in four dif- 
ferent directions, and find out whether the ground is 
rock or sand or something else. If we are in New 
York, we may extend our explorations a little farther. 
Walking west through the street, we come in time to 
the Hudson River. From the end of the docks we 
can look across the water, and see a steep wall of dark 
rock stretching along the bank of the river. There 
are trees and perhaps houses to be seen on top ; and 
at the foot of the black cliffs, near the water, there 
appears to be a gentle slope covered with trees or 
grass. We know that this wall of rock is called the 
Palisades, and even at this distance we can see that 



4 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the great masses of rock must be of a very differ- 
ent kind from the whitish-gray rocks in New York. 
Another bit of truth : All rocks are not of the same 
kind and color. Another day we might go up the river 
above Yonkers, and cross over to the Palisades, and 
make a regular study of them, and find that there are 
many singular and interesting things to be learned 
from them. Just now we must go farther afield, and 
take a wider look over the ground. 

We cross the river to Hoboken, and taking the 
Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western road, go towards 
the Orange Mountains. After passing the tunnel under 
the Palisades, we come out on an immense flat, cov- 
ered with tall grass and crossed by winding rivers, and 
we recognize the great Hackensack meadows. Then, 
the ground is not all rock or sand. By the edge of 
the reedy banks we see the black oozy peat and river 
mud. Disagreeable ! Why, no ! nothing is disagree- 
able if we look at it in a scientific spirit. This great 
fiord is one of the most peculiar places in the world, 
and has much to tell us of the greatest interest, had 
we time to stop. See that hill off to the north, like 
an island in this green sea. That's a bit of the Pali- 
sades left out there by itself. That, too, could tell us 
a long story. We ride on through Newark, and come 
to pleasant villages. Observe the country roads and 
the ploughed fields. The ground is red, and the low 
places wet and muddy. Here is something new, — 
something very different from the meadows, or the 
rocks in the city. 



THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 5 

Another day we may take the New- Haven road, and 
go out as far as Stamford in Connecticut. Here we 
find something wholly different. The land is hilly. 
There are very few level meadows, except along the 
shore of the sound. Through the grass in the fields 
appear many gray rocks covered with moss and lichens. 
The roads are gray and stony and the fields have 
none of that uniform red color we saw in New Jersey, 
but show every shade of brown and dark yellow. An- 
other day we may take the Long- Island Railroad, 
and go out towards Far Rockaway. Here is quite an- 
other country, more level, with whiter fields and more 
sandy roads. Still another expedition may take us up 
the Hudson by boat, and in two or three hours we are 
sailing among steep mountains covered everywhere 
with forests. 

These observations of different places about New 
York show us that the surface of the earth is full of 
variety in shape, in color, and character. The ground 
is composed in part of rocks, of sand and gravel, 
and many other things. If you are unable to make 
these journeys about New York, look around your 
home, wherever it may be, and you will discover that 
the ground varies in color, surface, and in materials, 
in every place. You may live upon a prairie, where all 
the ground seems, as far as you can see, to be every- 
where the same ; yet even here there will be differences 
between one field and another. Examine the country 
about your home in four different directions, — north, 
south, east, and west, as far as you can conveniently 



6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

walk or ride, — and make notes of all you see concern- 
ing the surface of the ground. Note whether it be 
level or hilly, whether there are mountains near or in 
sight, or whether there be only low rounded hills and 
winding valleys. Note also the color of the roads 
and ploughed fields. Put the date, the names and 
distances of the places, and all these facts, on the 
report, and, having signed it, put it away in a safe 
place. The day may come when you will be glad to 
refer to it again. 

We have learned that the surface of the world ex- 
hibits great variety in form and color. We must now 
take up a regular series of observations to find out the 
cause of this variety. The most important is the ac- 
tual surface or form, — whether it be flat, or gently 
sloping, or steep and rough. The color of the ground 
is of use in helping us to study it ; but just now it is of 
less importance, and we will look at the surface only. 
In making these observations, it will be well also to 
observe the direction in which the ground slopes, — 
whether it be towards the sun at noon, or away from it 
in some other direction. 

II. THE BONES OF THE WORLD. — We know 
that animals, fishes, and birds have bones. These 
bones united in various ways form the creature's skele- 
ton, and upon the form of the skeleton depends the 
form or shape of the living creature. We might con- 
clude that the surface of the ground was in like man- 
ner dependent upon some interior skeleton or bony 
structure. In one sense this is true, and in another 



THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 7 

it is not exactly true. The hills and mountains have 
been called the "bones of the earth," because they 
are formed of rock over which is spread a thin layer 
of soil in which all plants grow. Here and there on 
the higher and steeper parts, as at the top of the Pali- 
sades on the Hudson and other hills or mountains, the 
rocks are bare ; and people have said that the bare 
bones of the hills can at such places be seen. This is 
an interesting idea, and is good because it helps us to 
get at the real truth. All high hills and mountains are 
made of rock. The bare spots plainly show this, and 
every mine or oil-well sunk in the hills shows only 
solid rock, or the remains of rocks, as far down as men 
have ever been able to bore. The rocks are the bones 
of the hills. They are really much more. 

A skeleton, as any visit to a museum will show us, is 
composed of bones arranged in a particular order, — 
the bones of a dog being arranged in one way, the 
bones of a pickerel in quite another way. There are 
spaces between the bones, and we recognize that every 
creature's skeleton is a framework held together by 
the creature's muscles and soft parts. It is quite dif- 
ferent with a mountain. It is composed of rock, but 
the rock is in a mass. There is no framework ; and, 
except in shape, the rocky mass of one hill may be 
just like another. Thus we see that the rocks do not 
form a true skeleton for the hills or mountains. They 
are simply masses of rock ; and their shape or outside 
surface depends upon many different things, some of 
them quite independent of the rocks themselves. 



8 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

This idea of the rocks being skeletons of the hills, we 
thus see, is a purely fanciful notion. 

A mere fancy may suggest a truth. The hills and 
mountains are gigantic masses of rock. What of the 
meadows, the sandy wastes along the shore, the wide 
prairies where not a stone as big as a walnut can be 
found ? Is there no rocky frame to these level parts 
of the world ? Certainly. The whole exterior surface 
of the earth is rock. Under the prairie, under the 
seas, under the wide pine-barrens of the South, lie the 
deep rocks, the foundations that hold up all we can 
see of the world. A vast shell of rock really makes 
the skeleton of the earth. What is under the stony 
frame, we do not know ; perhaps more rock to the very 
centre of the planet. Perhaps the rock is glowing / 
white with heat. In the coal-mine we found it very / 
warm. Volcanoes and hot springs plainly show there 
is heat and fire somewhere below the ground. Where, 
no one can tell. Perhaps no man will ever know. It 
does not matter. The rocky shell that completely 
covers all from sight, securely holds us up ; and upon 
its surface we live and work. At times there are 
movements and earthquakes ; yet the planet, as a whole, 
keeps quiet and secure. The rocks make the great 
bone-like frame of the earth, and it is these rocks we 
are first to study. Over a living skeleton is always 
flesh and skin, clothing it all from sight. So it is with 
the earth. The rocky frame of the globe is covered 
with an outside skin of the greatest beauty. This skin 
or outside part is called the soil. It covers nearly all 



THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. g 

the rocky floor of the continents from sight, and upon 
it we live ; and from it come plants, each having a value 
and beauty of its own after its kind. This skin, or mask, 
that hides the rocks that cover all the planet is, com- 
pared with the whole thickness of the earth, infinitely 
thin. It is at best only a few feet deep, often only a 
few inches deep. It is as if we had placed a blanket 
of the thinnest cloth over the back of the largest ele- 
phant we could find. The rocky crust of the earth, 
from the top of the highest mountain to the bottom 
of the deepest mine, compared with the thickness of 
the earth from the surface to the centre, is as one is to 
four hundred. If the crust we are able to measure is 
only ¥ ^o °f tne thickness to the centre, how thin is the 
soil compared, with the mass of the earth ? However, 
we are ourselves but specks and mites compared with 
the whole mass of the globe, so we need not trouble 
ourselves concerning the comparative thinness of the 
skin of our planet-home. We wish now to study the 
many-colored coat of the world, and to do this we 
must begin with the rocks. We wish to study the soil, 
because from it come plants, fruits, clothing, foods, 
flowers, and wealth; and the soil is the child of the 
rocks. 

in. SURFACE INDICATIONS. — The miner pros- 
pecting through the country in search of valuable 
metals is guided in part by what he calls the " surface 
indications." If the water in the brooks is deep red, 
there may be iron in the hills. If bits of worn and 
weathered coal lie half hid in the grass at the foot of 



10 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

a cliff, then the edge of the coal-seam may crop out 
somewhere far up the mountain-side, from whence 
these stray bits of coal rolled down. If the man is 
looking for potters' clay, he studies the low places to 
see where the water has collected in muddy pools ; 
after the rain-water has dried from the pools and shal- 
lows, he sees the ground has cracked into irregular 
fissures. The man looking for fine white sand for 
making glass examines the road-sides, and exposed 
places along the railroad-cuttings, for traces of sand- 
heaps. All these are marks or indications on the sur- 
face, giving hints of what may be found beneath the 
ground. We, in like manner, are prospecting for good 
soils; and we must first of all look out for surface 
indications. 

Let us understand the matter clearly. Everywhere 
beneath the ground is solid rock continuous around 
the entire world. If the ground were everywhere level, 
as in some of our Western States, we might never 
know this till we came to dig down through the soil 
in search of coal or metals. Very likely, if the whole 
world were level, we might never have heard of these 
things. Fortunately the ground is not everywhere 
level. In many places the surface is crumpled up into 
ridges and knobs, so that the rocks with all their 
metals, coal, and mineral wealth, are in sight and 
often in easy reach. These raised places are the hills 
and mountains, and they form our first surface indica- 
tions. 

What is the character of the country about your 



THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. II 

home ? Is it level like a prairie for many miles in all 
directions ? Is it a valley between hills ? Is it directly 
among the hills or mountains, or are there many low 
hills with small valleys ? Walk or ride about in dif- 
ferent directions, and get at the facts in your case; 
and put it all down in your note-book, with the date 
and place of the observation. 

Another indication may be found in the plants. Is 
the country about your home covered with forests, or 
are there cultivated fields and grassy pastures, with 
occasional groves of trees? Are there bare places 
where no plants grow ? Do the wild plants and grasses 
grow rapidly in the summer, or are the wild plants 
small and stunted, and of feeble growth? Examine 
the plants and trees, both in fields and gardens, and 
put down in your note-book every thing you observe. 

If there are streams near by, look at the water. Is 
it clear or muddy, and what is its usual color ? If you 
live near the sea or the great lakes, note this also. 
Observe the ploughed fields and gardens. Is the land 
wet and sticky after a rain, or does all the water quickly 
disappear from the surface as soon as the storm has 
passed ? What is the color of the ground about your 
home? All these things are surface indications, and 
should be noted, and the records kept for future refer- 
ence. By their aid we shall be able, in due time, to 
decide upon the value of any soil we may see, with a 
certain degree of confidence. If we understand the 
surface indications of the soil, we shall be able to tell 
pretty closely whether any field or farm is valuable or 



12 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

worthless ; whether it will give us good crops, or only 
poor and unprofitable returns for our labor. To make 
these surface indications of value, we must first study 
the past history of the world, and endeavor to find 
out how the various soils that cover the rocky frame 
of our planet were made. The soil is the child of the 
rocks. The rocks appear through the surface of the 
ground, among the hills and mountains. It is, there- 
fore, to the hills we must look for information concern- 
ing this varied and beautiful garment of the world, 
we call the soil. 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 3 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 

iv. THE SOIL-MAKERS. — There are two ways 
of looking at the history of things. One is to imagine 
that things were first made as they are now. The 
other is to think that things are as they now appear, 
because of many past events that gradually shaped 
them to their present form. It has been thought by 
many wise men, in the past, that the world was made, 
from the very beginning, just as we now see it ; that 
when Adam went forth from the Garden of Eden, he 
found the world but freshly made, and precisely as 
we see it to-day. It has been thought by other wise 
men, that the years of the world are past counting ; 
that our planet passed through many long stages of 
growth; that its present appearance is the result of 
infinite changes, every change being a step upward, 
a step toward improvement. In the opinion of these 
men, the world, under God's guidance, grew to its 
present form through various stages of growth, and in 
each stage subject to natural laws that have neither 
change nor turning. These are opinions, and there 
have been good men who have firmly held to one or 
the other of these two opinions. 



/4 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

The moment we come to study the rocks, we find 
many things that lead us to think that this last opinion 
must be the truth. The geologist is the student of 
rocks; and his history of the world, as he reads it 
in the rocks themselves, is the geological history of 
the world. This history, he tells us, is still going on 
now. The rocks make their own history every day. 
Day by day, year by year, the face of the rocks 
changes. From these changes, the v geologist has rea- 
soned backward to the time when the rocks began. 
He has put many observations together, and formed 
what seems to be a truthful story. We must glance at 
this story before we can rightly understand why and 
how the soil under our feet was made. 

In the beginning God created the universe, "and 
the earth was without form, and void." There is noth- 
ing we can know beyond this. We see, far beyond the 
little group of planets we call the solar system, vapor- 
ous clouds of light without definite form, vast, void of 
life, perhaps only clouds of flaming gas. Are these 
the beginnings of a world ? No man can say ; yet 
they seem to suggest the beginnings of a star, and a 
star is a world. In like manner, our star, now clad 
with a cold skin of stone, may have been a cloud of 
fiery gases that through countless ages condensed into 
a vast ball, swinging round the sun. In time it became 
more solid, and spent a part of its heat ; for the laws 
of nature, the laws of light, of sound, electricity, mag- 
netism,, attraction, and chemical action and re-action, 
were at work then as now. These laws would tend to 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 5 

produce, in time, a globe nearly round, with a thin 
crust on the outside, that, as the cooling and con- 
densation went on, would shrink and shrivel up into 
wrinkles and ridges. No man can say how slowly or 
how rapidly these changes took place. God is in no 
haste. A million years are as the swing of a pendulum 
in the clock of his time. All the years, up to the time 
when the first rocks appeared, are as the dust in the 
air, — past counting. Men have tried to roughly esti- 
mate them, but it is like measuring a mountain with a 
yard-stick. We have to be content to call it ages, 
and without knowing exactly what ages mean. 

It is enough now to imagine that there came a time 
in the history of our planet when the surface of the 
earth became hard enough and cool enough to hold 
water. The clouds, driven off perhaps by the heat, 
condensed ; and scalding rain fell on the first rocks. 
What these rocks were, or how they looked, we can 
only vaguely guess. They may have been precisely 
like our granites or like the lavas we see to-day thrown 
out of volcanoes. This does not matter at present. 
We have only to note that at the time the first rocks 
appeared, there were winds and storms, lightning, 
clouds, rains, and eventually hail, snow, and ice. The 
surface was probably very irregular; and the water 
gathered in certain places, and the dry land appeared. 
We have observed in our studies of the weather certain 
laws governing the temperature, the clouds and rain. 
There is no reason to think these laws did not prevail 
then. There is every reason to think that the laws we 



1 6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

see in operation to-day were in operation then. " He 
giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoar-frost 
like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels : who 
can stand before his cold ? He sendeth out his word, 
and melteth them : he causeth the wind to blow, and 
the waters flow." God reigns in this planet, though it 
be only a mass of naming gas, a ball of liquid fire 
cased in a shell of glowing rocks, or the world beau- 
tiful where men live. 

What effect would these laws have upon the first 
rocks? What influence would the weather have on 
them ? The geologist tells us that the first rocks began 
to "weather •" They were exposed to the weather, 
and remarkable changes at once began. This process 
he calls " weathering." The result of this weathering 
is at last to make soils. Naturally we might ask him 
how he knows that. His answer is very simple : be- 
cause this process of weathering is going on now upon 
all rocks, and there is no reason to think it did not go 
on then. The geologist has also another word, " de?i- 
udation." When the first rocks appeared, they were 
doubtless soon thrown or crumpled up by the shrink- 
ing of the crust, into heaps and ridges. These prime- 
val hills began at once to be weathered, — to be torn 
down and denuded by stormy winds, frost, ice, rain, 
torrents, and floods. The moment there began to be 
a rocky crust to the world, destruction, wreck, change, 
and alteration began. The weather crumbled and broke 
down the rocks. Denudation set in ; and the crooked 
began to be made, straight, the rough places plain, and 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 7 

all the mountains were brought low. The sea brought 
its sledge-hammer waves to smash and destroy the 
rocks. Frightful storms and cyclones tore away the 
crests of the hills. Glaciers ploughed gigantic furrows 
through the hills, and icebergs scratched the very face 
of the hard rocks. No man was there to see. Per- 
haps no living creature, perhaps not even the lowest 
form of plant, was yet alive. We guess at these things, 
because they are still going on to-day. We see the 
record of past ages in the rocks under our feet. These 
things that tend to alter and change the rocks, the 
frost, rain, the air, storms, ice, and floods, were the first 
soil-makers. 

v. WE A THERING. — Schunemunk Mountain forms 
the western side of the valley that opens through the 
rear of the Highlands back of West Point on the Hud- 
son. The valley forms the gateway through the moun- 
tains from Newburgh to the valley of the Ramapo, and 
offers a road for the old Albany Turnpike, and the 
present Short Cut Railroad connecting Newburgh with 
the New York, Lake Erie, and Western. From Hough- 
ton Farm the whole eastern face of the mountain, 
extending north-east and south-west for several miles, 
can be plainly seen. At intervals through the trees can 
be seen frowning cliffs of dark rock deeply stained by 
the weather. About half a mile south of the station, 
one of these cliffs is quite near the railroad, and can 
be easily examined. This cliff admirably illustrates 
weathering, as the work is going on very rapidly. 

On climbing over the fence by the railroad, and en- 



18 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

tering the woods, the ground is found to be very rough. 
Through the thin grass can be seen irregular fragments 
of hard stone. On advancing up the hill, these rocks 
become more plentiful, till at last the ground is 
completely covered with sharp rough stones of every 
shape. Presently we see among these ragged rocks 
great numbers of smooth round pebbles. As we go 
on, these become more common, and we find many 
lumps or masses of pebbles bound together, and look- 
ing much like plums in a pudding. We recognize 
these as pieces of " pudding-stone." The first rock 
broken into irregular pieces is quite different in color 
and texture, and is a trap-rock. The particular names 
of these rocks are not now important. The thing to 
observe is that something has smashed and broken 
these rocks in pieces. These rocks were evidently 
once solid masses. Now they are only ruins, the shat- 
tered remains of some mountain. We climb upward 
in search of an answer. At every step the hill grows 
steeper, the fragments of rocks larger and more irregu- 
lar. At last we reach a scene of the wildest ruin and 
confusion. Huge fragments of the pudding-stone lie 
piled one over the other, as if hurled down from 
the mountain-top. Here a mass weighing tons has 
ploughed deep into the ground, raising a mass of rough 
gravel before it as it slid down the mountain. Here a 
great lump has shot half-way through a tree, and is 
barely supported at one end as if ready to fall with a 
crash down the hill. A fallen tree with every leaf 
withered and yellow has a splintered trunk, and when 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 9 

we reach it we find a mass of rusty rock has plunged 
completely through it. Climbing as best we can over 
the wild confusion of smashed and broken rocks and 
shattered trees, we reach the base of the gray cliff. 
It is split and splintered in every direction, and many 
pieces seem ready to fall and crush us. It is evident 
this cliff is being torn down, for here are the fragments 
at our feet. The work is going on now, for the fallen 
tree was cut down this very summer. The leaves have 
only withered recently, and the splintered wood is still 
fresh. The cliff is fast weathering away. 

What are the causes of this destruction ? Is it best 
that this great Schunemunk Mountain be thus torn 
down? and what good will come of all this ruin- 
ous change? We pick up a mass of pudding-stone, 
and throw it down upon the rocks below, and it bursts 
into a thousand pieces, and a shower of pebbles rat- 
tles over the rocks. Observe the color of the stone, — 
a dull red. The plums of the pudding-stone are 
bound together with iron. It has rusted on exposure 
to the air, and falls apart easily. Here is our first clew. 
The air is at work on the cliff. The oxygen of the air 
is combining with the iron to form the red dust called 
oxide of iron, and the pebbles being bound only with 
dust easily fall apart. Here we see the air is an 
agent in breaking down the rocks. The gases in the 
air act chemically upon all rocks, to disintegrate and 
break them up into dust and powder. So it has been 
since the first rocks appeared. The moment they 
were exposed to the air, they began to be destroyed. 



20 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

Rub your hand over the face of the cliff. It is dusty. 
The air attacks every part of the surface, and it slowly 
decays and turns to dust. In the case of the pudding- 
stone, the process is comparatively rapid, because the 
iron cement that binds the pebbles together rusts away 
and lets them free, just as beads are let loose when 
the string breaks. The fallen tree and the vast heap 
of shattered rocks at the base of the cliff plainly show 
that the destruction must be comparatively rapid. 
Could the air alone do this ? From the appearance 
of the cliff, there must be other causes at work. 

We notice that the cliff is full of cracks. When it 
rains, the water must flow down through all these 
cracks, and lodge in countless minute fissures in the 
face of the rock. After a heavy rain, when the rock 
is filled with water, it may clear away, and a sharp, cold 
wind come out of the north-west. Every drop of 
water freezes and expands, and bursts open the rock, 
splitting off minute specks and scales, or throwing 
down great lumps that crash through the trees, and 
destroy every thing before them. Here is another 
and more powerful cause at work breaking down the 
rock. 

In the summer there is no frost , and yet the rain 
may be at work washing moss and dust into cracks 
already opened, and forming a sponge ready to hold 
water that freezing next winter will act with still greater 
force. The dry dust sifted into the cracks and open- 
ings formed in the rock will also expand when wet, and 
push off small pieces, or start a great mass that last 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 21 

winter's ice left just ready to fall. Perhaps in this way 
the great lump that cut down the tree not many weeks 
ago was toppled over. The wind may also in storms 
brush off small bits already loosened and ready to fall, 
and occasionally the lightning splits off a fragment. 
Every rain that falls brings down acids from the air to 
slowly eat away the rock. The sun warms the face of 
the rock, and helps to destroy it by expanding its 
surface, and opening minute channels for the sudden 
summer rain, that with thin fingers seeks out every 
crack to pull the rock to pieces. Even the mosses 
and lichens growing here and there, and the roots of 
trees and plants, assist in the work ; and thus the noble 
cliff reared so high in the air, even the mountain itself, 
is visibly falling in ruins before our eyes. Slowly, in- 
finitely slowly, but without pause, the work goes on, 
and has gone on since that wild day when with frightful 
sounds and awful earthquakes, old Schunemunk was 
upraised. As we go down the mountain-side, we find 
again the fragments of trap-rock. There, too, are the 
ruins of some higher cliff. It is a harder rock, and the 
pieces are sharp and jagged. The weather must have 
worked very slowly, for the edges and corners are 
hardly dulled. The trees that spring up among the 
stones show they have lain here for at least fifty years, 
and the stones are almost unchanged in that time. 
The years that passed while they were slowly broken 
down from their old cliff may be numbered by hun- 
dreds. No man can tell. We can only observe that 
while the work now going on at the pudding-stone 



22 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

cliff is very rapid, this other and probably much older 
work was very slow. 

This weathering of the rocks has been going on ever 
since the world began. Heat, cold, water, air, ice, 
the wind, expansion and contraction, storms, all the 
phenomena we have been studying in our observations 
of the weather, unite to break down and destroy the 
rocks. The work is still going on every day. It can 
be seen easily all along the Palisades on the Hudson, 
and on every rocky hill and mountain. Look about 
among the hills in your neighborhood, and make care- 
ful explorations and observations of the effects of the 
weathering upon the rocks. Put down full notes of 
the work, whether it seems to be going on slowly or 
rapidly ; and note particularly what seems to be the 
chief influence, — the rain, or the frost. In some 
places you will find the rocks breaking down into sand, 
dust, and powder, during every rain. In others you 
will find it hard to tell whether the work is going on or 
not. In all it is going on, and good observation will 
soon enable you to find out its cause. 

From the railroad that creeps along under the 
shadow of Schunemunk, looking south, can be seen 
the profile of the mountain. The slope is peculiar. 
At the top it is abrupt and steep ; then it softens, and 
with a lovely curve the graceful outline melts gently 
away into the level meadows of the beautiful valley. 
The mountain is wasting away; and its ruins are 
slipping, slipping ever, down into the fertile valley. 
The soil-makers are at work here, as everywhere, 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2$ 

since the rocks began. The weathering of the rocks 
degrades and denudes the mountains, and this very- 
destruction is for the benefit of the valley. These 
broken and shattered stones are melting away into 
sand and dust, and this sand and dust helps to make 
the soil out of which spring flowers and fruits and 
crops of every kind. Faster or slower, forever and 
forever, the work will go on till the mountains are 
brought low, and the rough places are made plain. 
Out of ruin and destruction come ever life and 
beauty. Even the outline of this rubbish and wreck, 
swept down from the mountain, makes a beautiful 
curve against the sky. They call such a sloping mass 
of waste and broken material at the foot of a mountain 
or cliff, a talus. We see the talus about the base of 
nearly every rocky hill, and we recognize its outline 
by its wonderful beauty. 

VI. THE SOIL MOVERS AND SORTERS. — In 
our excursion to the pudding-stone on Schunemunk, 
we observed the influence of the weather upon the 
rocks. We saw that heat and cold, water, air, rain, 
and storms, tended to tear down and degrade the 
mountain. If near our homes we found other examples 
of this weathering of the rocks, it was only to find 
illustrations of the same thing, showing that the work 
is universal, and not confined to this single mountain 
in the Highlands of the Hudson. All who live in the 
level portions of the country, and are unable to find 
near their homes examples of this work, will simply 
note the fact that this work does go on in all hills, 



24 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

that the tendency of the rocks is to crumble and fall 
down under the influence of weathering, and that this 
weathering has undoubtedly been going on without 
interruption since the first rocks appeared. We will 
all, whether living near the hills or on the most level 
prairie, now join in still further observations out of 
doors, in the neighborhood of our homes. 

If the mountains crumble and fall into loose heaps 
of broken stone, why do we not find the heaps just 
where they fall? Why is there a long, sloping talus 
at every denuded cliff? We might expect, from all 
we have learned, that there would be masses of loose 
stones about every ruined mountain, and that the 
broad plains, like the great valley between the Alle- 
ghanies and the Rocky Mountains, would be bare rock, 
just as at the beginning. We know that this is not so, 
and that our prairie States, far from any mountains, 
often have deep soils, rich in the remains of long- 
vanished hills. We must find the answer to these 
questions by observing what is going on about us 
every day. 

Go to the nearest brook or river after a heavy rain. 
Observe the color of the water. It is perhaps yellow 
or brown, with mud and floating sediment. If you 
cannot do this, observe the little -streams of water in 
the road or in the street-gutter at the beginning of a 
smart shower. The water is muddy and discolored. 
It is evident the water is carrying along many fine 
particles of earth and soil. If the stream is in a hilly 
country, we may observe, that, beside the fine mud 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2$ 

carried along by the water, there is sand sweeping 
onward over the bed of the stream. If the stream is 
a mere rivulet that quickly dries up after the rain has 
ceased, we can examine its bed when it is dry, and 
plainly see that the water carried along sand, small 
stones, and fine mud. At low stages of the water, our 
Western rivers show this very plainly wherever shoals 
and sand-bars appear. Make full and careful notes of 
all that is seen in such a dry bed, for there are two 
great facts to be learned from these observations. 
For those who live by the sea, the same observations 
can be made all along the shore, at the mouth of 
every bay or inlet on the coast. 

We have here the great soil-mover, — water. The 
rain, falling on the wasting rocks, sweeps away the mi- 
nute specks and grains chipped off by the weather, and 
carries them down to the nearest streamlet and brook. 
These fine bits of rock do not float, but are suspended 
in the water or roll along the bed of the stream. 
The ragged flakes and scales of stone crash and grind 
against each other. Every rough corner is knocked 
off, and all the pieces become rolled into smooth round 
particles. The brook is a mill. It is making, from 
the chips brought down by the rain, sand. A flood 
comes with more water, and larger pieces of broken 
rock are pushed into the rapidly moving water ; and 
these, knocking, tumbling, and grinding over each 
other, are soon ground into smooth round pebbles 
and gravel. Onward rolls the confused mass of gravel, 
sand, and finer bits of rocks, grinding and polishing 



26 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

each piece as it goes. In time the stream comes to 
more level ground, and runs slower and slower. The 
current, not being able to push the larger stones any 
farther, leaves them all by themselves. As it goes 
slower and slower, it is still weaker, and drops the 
coarser sand, and then the finer sand. Lastly, the 
finest dust suspended in the water must be dropped 
in smooth beds of mud ; and the water flows away to 
the sea quite clear, having left its loads behind in the 
lowlands, and all correctly sorted out, — the gravel 
by itself in one place, the sand in another, the fine 
mud in another. Running water is the great soil- 
mover. It takes the broken fragments of rocks from 
the hills, and transports the material to distant plains, 
perhaps hundreds of miles away. The bits of rock 
broken off by the cold in the White Mountains may 
be transported by the Connecticut River, and left 
as rich soft mud on the meadows about Hartford. 
The yellow mud of the Mississippi may drift a thousand 
miles across the continent, and lay the dust of Penn- 
sylvania hills among the sugar- plantations of Louisiana. 
The first rains that fell on the oldest primeval rocks 
became the first soil-movers ; and the work has gone 
on for countless centuries on centuries, precisely as we 
see it going on to-day. Floods and storms may have 
hastened the work. Mountains of volcanic dust may 
have been swept away by a single storm, and scattered 
over the plains for a hundred miles in every direction. 
There is every reason to think, that, in the geological 
past, the streams and rivers wore down and carried 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2J 

away whole mountain ranges in a very short time. In 
the West we find that this work of carrying away the 
ruins of degraded hills is going on now upon the most 
gigantic scale, and from this we can form an idea of 
what may have happened long ago. Currents and 
tides along the shore are also movers of sand and 
gravel, moving beaches and sand-bars from place to 
place, and often changing the whole character of the 
coast for miles. 

We observed, in studying the empty bed of the riv- 
ulet, that the sand after the water had subsided is left 
in one place, the fine mud in another. This is often 
shown on a small scale in every street-gutter ; and, to 
the young man or young woman with eyes, the street 
may be an open lesson in the first principles of geol- 
ogy. Running water is thus the great rock-sorter, as 
well as rock-mover. The ruins of the hills are not left 
in hopeless confusion on the plains. The whole of the 
material is completely sorted : the larger stones and 
pebbles are left in one place j the sand is carried 
farther away, and is left by itself ; and the lighter stuff, 
the mere specks and scales of rock, are carried farthest, 
and left also by themselves. We saw in our studies 
of the weather, that the sun brought the water from 
the seas, and that the invisible vapor in the air con- 
densed as clouds about the cold mountain-tops, to fall 
in rain. We now see that this same rain assists to 
break down the rocky hills, and to carry the ruins far 
and wide, and leave the sand and fine silt or mud on 
the lowlands to cover the naked rocks, and form a 



28 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

home for plants and grasses. The sun, we learned, is 
the great rain-mover; and thus it is indirectly the 
great soil- mover. 

Added to the moving water we have the wind, that 
may blow loose dust and sand long distances. Ice 
in streams may push loose gravel before it along a 
river-bottom, or even carry it floating on the water. 
These agencies — water, ice, and wind — have been 
sufficient to transport whole mountain ranges from one 
place to another. All that was required was time, and 
in the history of the ground a million years may be as 
one day in our lives. 

There is also one other circumstance to be observed 
in the slow formation of the soil that now nearly every- 
where covers the rocky shell of the world. The sur- 
face rock itself, even where there are no hills, slowly 
breaks up into fine bits, scraps and dust; and, the 
surface being level, this broken material left after the 
weathering of the ground-rock may remain where it is, 
and thus slowly form a covering of soil over the rock 
itself. This process is going on all the time, and 
slowly deepens the soil all over the world. This fact 
we must enter in our note-books also, because it is 
of the utmost importance to every man, woman, or 
child who sows a field of wheat, or plants a flower- 
seed. 

While we have observed the effects of weathering 
upon the rocks, and noticed how running water tends 
to move and sort the loose material broken off from 
the rocks, we must not forget that there have been in 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 29 

the history of the earth wonderful changes that have 
also had a great influence in giving the surface of the 
earth its present appearance. Earthquakes have raised 
mountains in the air. Volcanoes have lifted enormous 
heaps of lava, dust, and ashes into the clouds, or scat- 
tered vast quantities of cinders over whole tracts of 
country. The sea has rolled in upon the land. The 
lands have even sunk in the water, or been raised up ; 
and this many times over, so that what were once 
shallow bays and lagoons became at last mountain- 
tops. Vast tracts of gravel scattered by streams from 
old dead mountains have been hardened into stone. 
Deep black pools of mud have been sunk and crushed 
in earthquakes, and turned to coal. Whole beaches 
have been solidified to red sandstones by water charged 
with iron filtering through the sand. 

Moreover, climates have changed. Where now we 
have each season snow and ice in winter, and growing 
plants and hot sunshine in summer, there was at one 
time almost continual winter. It is now thought, that 
for a very long time all of New England, New York, 
and several other States, were buried out of sight under 
deep ice. This ice, like the glaciers we see to-day in 
high mountains, drifted slowly southward over the 
country, ploughing up the loose earth, grinding the 
hard faces of the rocks till they were polished like 
mirrors, cutting deep grooves in the rocks, and push- 
ing enormous quantities of mud, stones, and gravel 
through all the valleys. Schunemunk Mountain bears 
upon its smooth rounded top hundreds of traces where 



3<D TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the ice ploughed over the rocks. Some of the stones 
at the top are to-day brilliant with the polish left by 
the slowly grinding ice. The very ruins of the moun- 
tain were carried far away to the south-east, and scat- 
tered over the State of New Jersey. Wherever we 
find — as in New England, on Long Island, through 
New York, New Jersey, and even farther west — 
rounded hills of gravel, we know the great glaciers 
once covered all the land deep in ice. When at last 
the seasons grew warmer, year by year the ice disap- 
peared, till now there is not a trace of it except in the 
terrible ruin it wrought. Wherever you see a rounded 
hill of gravel, you may be sure that once the ice was 
at work making new soils. This Schunemunk Moun- 
tain thus contributed to the soils of New Jersey, and 
other mountains and hills far to the north sent down 
their remains on the ice to make the surface soil of 
the valleys all about old Schunemunk. So great was 
the movement of soils caused by the ice of the glacial 
period, that in this part of the country we cannot be 
sure that the soil near any hills all came from the hills 
themselves : it may have come from hills a hundred 
miles away. 

These changes, with others of equal magnitude, 
form what is called the geological history of the soil ; 
and, if you have time, it will be well worth the while 
to study it still more. In brief it is this : The rocks 
were first formed, and then torn down by the weather ; 
sorted, moved about, and re-arranged into new soils 
and new rocks ; and again all was overturned, ground 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 3 1 

up, transported, and sorted out again, — till it is im- 
possible to tell just how old any particular soil may be. 
Plants and living creatures also helped to form new 
soil. Shell-fish and countless millions of tiny creatures 
swarmed the old seas, only to die, and leave their shells 
and skeletons to make new stones that were afterwards 
lifted into hills, only to be torn down again, and scat- 
tered far and wide to form new soils. 

VII. PLANTS AND LIVING CREATURES AS 
SOIL-MAKERS. — On the rocks everywhere to-day 
we find lichens and mosses ; dull, slow-growing plants, 
that live low, strange lives on the bare face of rocks 
where no other plants could grow. With your knife, 
scrape off these close-clinging lichens and mosses, and 
under them the rock is dusty. The plants are slowly 
destroying the surface of the rocks, and forming a thin 
dust in which they can find a foot-hold and live. 
These plants perish in time ; and their dusty, powdery 
remains slip into cracks and fissures of the rocks. 
Seeds blown by the wind lodge in these cracks, and 
spring up and try to live in the scanty soil. It is a 
soil, because the mosses powdered the rocks, and 
made a fine stony dust. Their own remains also 
added more material, and the seeds found what they 
wanted, — food and a place to grow. The plants from 
the seeds perished, and their remains were added to 
the soil. In this way all plants since the world began 
have helped to form the soil. The plants perished in 
the changes that came over the world. No doubt 
many times soils were formed, and trees grew for 



32 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

thousands of years, only to be destroyed and over- 
turned. Earthquakes, sinkings in the seas, showers of 
dust from volcanoes, floods and fires, swept away all 
traces of old soils and old forests, till only the rocks 
remained ; yet in all there was progress, and the last 
new soil formed of dead plants and the remains of 
more ancient rocks now covers all the land. Every 
plant that has ever lived helped in some degree to 
make a soil for other plants. Every leaf that falls, 
every plant dying of old age or destroyed by frost or 
fire, leaves its gift for the plants that are to come after 
it. We have only to observe the thick carpet of fallen 
leaves under the trees in the woods, to see that each 
year the trees add to the soil in which they live. We 
walk along the edge of swamps and bogs, and see the 
thick moss and rank grass slowly moulding away 
beneath the water, and forming a black, soft soil, on 
which other generations of plants live, and, perishing in 
turn, add more and more to the ever-increasing mass 
of dead vegetable matter. In the past, long ages ago, 
plants and trees, giant ferns and quick-growing mosses, 
grew more rapidly than we ever see them growing 
now. These plants, many of them water-loving plants, 
grew apace in the hot, steamy climates, and in dying 
left their remains in the black swamps and muddy 
meadows, and contributed vast quantities of materials 
to our soils. Some of these old soils, made almost 
wholly of dead plants, afterwards became our coal- 
beds ; others, no doubt, helped to form the deep 
black soils of our prairies. Earthquakes destroyed 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 33 

and buried whole forests ; and their remains, squeezed 
between the rocks, turned to stone. Plants undoubt- 
edly grew in great abundance everywhere they could 
find a foot-hold, from the time the first wild storms 
tore down the oldest rocks, and made the first scanty 
soils and in turn helped to form still other soils. We 
see how the rocks have contributed to make the soils, 
but we must also remember the plants. They have 
worked more slowly, and the proportion they give is 
smaller ; yet it is an important part, as we shall pres- 
ently see. Plants have flourished every summer, in 
every portion of the earth not covered with ice and 
snow, for countless thousands upon thousands of years. 
We cannot even guess how long they have been grow- 
ing. And each plant, tree, and vine has at last laid 
down its life, and left its remains as a contribution to 
the soil that hides the bare and naked rocks from 
sight. It is the remains of plants that give the black 
color to our soils, and give us the deep, soft, rich 
soils of the West where our great crops grow. No 
land, except perhaps parts of Russia, has such deep 
soils as we possess in some of our Western States 
and Territories ; and these soils have been largely 
formed from the remains of long dead and forgotten 
plants. 

Every living creature has also helped to form the 
soils. Every fish and bird and beast that has ever 
lived since the world began has left its remains in the 
soil. Sometimes we find their skeletons turned to 
stone ; and only by these stony pictures — these fosils 



34 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

photographs of ancient life — can we tell how and 
where they lived. We know they did live, — that 
every single creature, from the shellfish as big as a pin- 
head to gigantic mastodons, has left its remains in the 
earth to be turned to stone and to soils. The sweet 
earth quickly melted the dead thing away, and turned 
it into soft soil where flowers and fruits might grow. 
Some of these remains were turned at last to stone, 
only to be weathered away by storms and again turned 
to soils. Even at this day, there are whole islands 
covered deep with yellow soil left by millions of sea- 
birds that made their homes on the rocks. We call it 
guano, and send ships to gather it that we may use 
this pungent yellow soil to enrich our gardens. Even 
the earth-worms we have thought so useless and dis- 
agreeable are soil-makers. We find in the garden-walk 
in the morning, tiny heaps of black soil left over night 
by some creature. Only within a few years was it 
discovered that this is the work of the earth-worms. 
They burrow deep in the soil in search of food, eating 
the poor soil below, and then leaving the undigested 
portions on the surface as rich contributions to the 
soil. And these humble creatures have no doubt per- 
formed this work for millions of years, and we never 
knew it until just now. Little did they care. The 
Creator gave them this good work to do ; and they 
went on attending to business, quite regardless of the 
opinion of men who wondered, ever since the world 
began, why such creatures were made. 

So it appears that our soils are composed of these 



THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 35 

three things, — the remains of old rocks, the remains 
of dead plants, and the remains of living creatures of 
every kind. Out of ruin come always new forms and 
new beauty, and out of death comes the food for more 
life. 



36 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 

VIII. ORGANIC AND INORGANIC. — We go out 

in the garden, or upon the cultivated land of the farm. 
If it is winter, the ground is hard and rough, or is 
covered with snow. In the Southern States, or in all 
the States in summer, we find the ground is soft and 
loose. Unless covered with grass or other plants, it is 
easy to dig a hole in the ground with a spade. Get a 
spade or other tool, and try this. Dig directly down 
into the ground. Observe what you find. At the 
very top the loose earth is dark-colored. As we dig 
deeper, the color, whether it be red, brown, yellow, 
black, or gray, becomes of a lighter shade. The first 
part or top, that is almost always of a darker color, 
may be from six to ten inches deep. In some places, 
as on the prairies and along river-bottoms, it may be 
very much deeper. The lighter- colored part below 
may be only a few inches deep, or several feet deep, 
this varying greatly in different places. If we dig still 
deeper, we come to sand, gravel, clay, or even rock. 
Whatever we find within a few feet of the top, we 
shall certainly find, somewhere below, the bed-rock 
that forms the crust of the earth. This loose material 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 37 

at the very top or surface of the ground is called the 
soil. For convenience it is divided into two parts : 
the upper and usually shallow part is called the soil, 
and the deeper part is called the subsoil. These two 
words, the soil and the subsoil, are used in all agricul- 
tural science ; and as we are considering this science, 
we will remember them and use them in their exact 
meaning, though it is often quite proper on some 
occasions to give the name soil to both soil and sub- 
soil. In some of our States and Territories, can be 
found wild lands where no man has ever cultivated 
the ground. In such places we call the soil virgin soil, 
because it is untouched, and just as it was formed 
from the remains of rocks, plants, and living creatures. 
It might be interesting to examine this wild g soil, but 
for our present purposes we will examine only the 
cultivated soils. We shall therefore understand the 
word " soil " to generally mean the soil and subsoil of 
our farms and gardens. It is in this soil that all our 
useful plants live and make their home. 

One of the first difficulties we meet in any study of 
nature is the infinite variety of things to be seen. It 
is bewildering to think that there are so many kinds 
of plants. A walk through the country, among the 
farms, shows us the greatest variety in soils also. Our 
exploring expeditions show endless variations in the 
surface and character of the ground. This apparent 
confusion and perplexing multitude of different things 
disappear at once when we bring to our observations 
the right scientific spirit. We must learn to classify 



38 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

things. We must arrange things in groups and classes. 
All the infinite variety in nature can be easily brought 
into order by grouping every thing in two great classes. 
Every thing we can see or touch, even those things we 
can only smell or feel, as the air or a perfume, can be 
grouped into one of the two classes. It is either an 
organic substance, or thing; or it is an inorganic 
substance, or material. An organic substance is some- 
thing that has been organized, or formed into organs 
or parts, and has life, or has had life at some time. 
Any creature, dead or alive, or any part of such crea- 
ture, be it a minute bit of bone or part of a wing or 
feather ; any plant, or remains of a plant, though it 
be only black dust where some plant has died, — any 
thing that shows organized structure, belongs to the 
organic class. All else, minerals, metals, water, gases, 
every thing that fails to show an organized structure, 
and that has no life, and never had life, belongs to 
the inorganic class. Look about carefully, and make 
a list of twenty organic and twenty inorganic things 
you may find in the house or out of doors. 

The soil and subsoil are composed of both organic 
and inorganic materials. If you find in any place 
loose materials composed wholly of inorganic sub- 
stances, or composed only of organic materials, you 
cannot properly call it a soil. A soil must have both, 
though in very different proportions. The soil will 
commonly contain more inorganic material than or- 
ganic material. The subsoil will be the same, except 
that it will generally contain a greater portion of 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 39 

inorganic materials than the soil immediately over it. 
For instance, if any soil contains ninety per cent of 
inorganic matter, and ten per cent of organic matter, 
the subsoil under it may not have more than three per 
cent of organic matter and ninety-seven per cent of 
inorganic matter. The reason for this is plain. Plants 
and animals that supply the organic materials live on 
the surface of the ground. Rocks that by weathering 
supply inorganic materials are below, and form the 
foundation of all soils. Besides this, organic materials 
are usually lighter than inorganic matter found^ in the 
soil, and naturally the heavier material is beneath the 
lighter material. There may be places, however, 
where this is quite different; as where a meadow, 
having a soil that is almost wholly composed of the 
remains of plants, may be covered with fine sands 
swept over it by a flood from the hills. The two are, 
however, in all cultivated soils, mixed together, and 
often so completely mingled that it is very difficult 
to separate them. Both organic and inorganic matters 
are necessary to the existence of all plants growing in 
a soil. 

On the Hartford and New- Haven Railroad, a few 
miles north of New Haven, there is, on both sides of 
the track for a mile or more, a level bit of country 
where not a tree or shrub or blade of grass can be 
seen. The ground is covered with loose yellow sand, 
that in dry weather drifts hither and thither in the 
wind. Before the road was ballasted with stone, it 
was a terrible place to pass, on account of the dread- 



40 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

ful clouds of dust that blew in the car-windows. Here 
is a soil probably almost wholly inorganic. It contains 
only sand, and it is so loose that no plants can find 
a footing in it. If by chance seeds fall there, as no 
doubt they do every year, they cannot grow ; because 
the first dry wind pulls them up by the roots, and car- 
ries them away to perish, or the drifting sand over- 
whelms them, and they are suffocated. Besides this, 
the rains that fall there soak quickly away through the 
sand, and the plants die for the want of water. If you 
never chance to pass this curious place in Connecticut, 
look about your own home, examine the sloping sides 
of railroad- cuttings through sandy or gravelly hills, and 
see if you cannot find examples of a soil composed 
almost wholly of inorganic material like sand. Make 
notes of the color and general character of such 
soils. 

In Orange County, N.Y., there is a great boggy tract 
called the Chester Meadows. Perhaps long ago it 
was a lake, and in time it was completely filled up by 
mosses and water-plants. These in dying left here a 
curious soft dark soil. Perhaps we should not call it 
a true soil ; for it is composed of only organic matter, 
with a very small portion of sand or inorganic matter. 
It is a famous place for growing onions, yet it has its 
disadvantages ; for, being very light and loose, the 
plants do not get a firm hold in the ground, and it has 
happened that in a gale of wind a whole crop of onions 
has been torn up, and blown away out of sight. The 
plants, finding no sand or heavy material in the soil, 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 4 1 

could not anchor themselves, and were blown away by 
the wind. 

Look about your home, and see if there are any soils 
near that are composed largely of remains of plants, 
or organic matter. Make full notes of the place, its 
color and general character. Observe it just after a 
rain, and see if it is wet like a sponge. Nearly all our 
useful plants object to wet feet, and refuse to live in 
these organic soils because they are so full of water. 

On Cape Cod in Massachusetts, there are many 
bogs and low places, filled with a mass of dead vege- 
table-matter that forms a black soil almost wholly or- 
ganic in character. In such places the cranberry-vine 
will grow finely, provided the soil is artificially prepared 
for it. To do this, the farmers cart clear sand into the 
bogs, and spread it over the damp, peaty mass of dead 
plants. On this mixture of organic and inorganic 
materials, the cranberry flourishes wonderfully. It is 
not blown away by the wind, nor does it wilt for want 
of water, or perish from too much water. Such arti- 
ficial soils show just how the mixture of organic and 
inorganic matter in certain proportions must be found 
in all good soils. 

Suppose, when you are walking about making your 
notes upon the soils near your home, you found a 
field composed almost wholly of an inorganic sand. 
Suppose in another place you found a black, boggy 
meadow, with only organic peat for a soil. Neither 
of these places is fit for useful plants, and yet each 
contains just what the plants need : each place has 



42 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the materials of a good soil. What would you do with 
such a place ? How could the sandy field be improved, 
and made to bear good crops ? Clearly, the thing to 
do here is to bring that black organic peat and muck 
from the bog, and put it on the sandy field. Here 
our observations are beginning to be of value. We 
are coming to see the value of agricultural science. 
Perhaps the sandy field does not produce enough to 
pay the taxes. Perhaps the bog is a dead waste, pro- 
ducing nothing of value. Bring the result of your ob- 
servations to bear on the subject. Get cart and horse, 
and carry the organic material from the bog to the 
inorganic material in the sandy field, or take the sand 
to the bog. Bring the two together, and make a new 
artificial soil where useful plants will grow, to give us 
food, or supply food for cows that may give us milk, 
cheese, and butter. 

IX. EXPERIMENTS WITH SOILS. — Our obser- 
vations have shown us that a soil composed wholly of 
inorganic materials, or wholly of organic materials, 
does not make a good home for plants. A few plants 
may manage to live in a field of sand made from in- 
organic rocks ; but their lives are very uncertain, and, 
even if they manage to live, they are not plants of any 
value. We do not call them useful plants. They are 
neither wheat, roses, nor good red cabbage. The use- 
ful plants that give us wealth from the ground will not 
thrive in such a soil. A large number of wild plants 
will grow in bogs and peaty meadows, but for a first- 
rate garden such a place is not of any value. The 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 43 

soil composed almost wholly of organic materials is 
wet, spongy, and Ipose, and makes a poor home for 
vegetables or flowers. Either place may be admirable 
for a garden if properly treated by mixing the organic 
and inorganic materials together. At once it becomes 
plain that we must have some means of deciding 
whether any particular soil has too much or too little 
of either of these two classes of material. 

First we may look at the surface indications. These 
are the color of the soil, and the position it occupies, 
the plants growing upon it, and the amount of water 
to be seen on the surface just after a rain. Soils com- 
posed almost wholly of inorganic materials are full of 
sand ; and such sands are gray, white, and light shades 
of yellow or red, the most common colors being gray 
and white. Organic soils are composed usually of the 
remains of plants, and these are black or dark brown. 

The position of the soil — whether it be at the top 
of a hill, or on the side of a hill near the top, or 
near the bottom, or in a level place — is another indi- 
cation. Organic materials are always lighter than 
inorganic matter, and in running water will travel the 
farthest, and be the last to sink. In a fall of rain, the 
water running over the surface of a gentle slope may 
sweep away all the organic matter, and leave the inor- 
ganic behind. This makes it plain, that of two fields, 
one on a hill-top and one in a valley, the hill field will 
have more inorganic matter than the lower field in the 
valley ; in like manner, the lower field will have more 
organic than inorganic. In a field occupying a hill- 



44 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

side, the lower part of the field will be richer in the 
remains of plants and animals than the upper part. 

In a low field where water collects, we shall find 
water-plants, — cat's-tails, ferns, and cardinal-flowers ; 
on the sandy hillsides, the blueberry and wild aster 
and mullein-stalks. A bare and sandy plain, where no 
plants can be found, will have a soil almost wholly 
inorganic. A level meadow overrun with sphagnum 
moss will have a pure organic soil. On the sandy 
place we shall find the water disappear through the 
soil the moment the rain ceases to fall : on a dark soil, 
composed of organic remains, the water may remain 
for weeks after a storm. 

For those who live on farms or near farm-lands, the 
best plan in making these surface observations is to 
select from different spots, in different directions from 
the house, and to make notes of each place, — the 
position and color of the soil, and the amount of water 
to be seen after a rain, — and to make a sketch-map 
of the places, and to decide from the observations 
which soil is chiefly organic and which chiefly inor- 
ganic, and to put all the data on the map. For those 
who cannot do this, the best plan is to observe differ- 
ent fields seen on walks and rides or from a car- 
window, and to learn to decide on the character of a 
soil from its surface indications by making repeated 
practice observations. 

Having decided from these indications what is the 
probable character of the soil of any particular field, 
we can next take up some of the actual soil, and ex- 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 45 

periment with it to find out how far the surface indi- 
cations are correct. We begin by selecting a pleasant 
day when the ground is dry, and with a spade and 
basket dig up about a peck of the soil from the surface 
of the nearest garden or flower-bed. Place the peck 
of soil on a board or on a newspaper in a round heap, 
and with the hand or a trowel stir it about till com- 
pletely and thoroughly mixed. Then pile in a heap, 
and carefully divide it into four equal parts. Take 
one of these quarter-parts, and, placing it by itself, stir 
and mix it again. The object of all this work is to get 
a fair sample of the soil. Next weigh out of this last 
lot half a pound of the soil, and spread it on a board 
or table in some sheltered place to dry. If near an 
open window or in a warm room, it should be com- 
pletely dry in twelve hours or in one night. To hasten 
the drying, it should be stirred or turned over occa- 
sionally with a trowel. When quite dry, weigh it care- 
fully again. It will be found much lighter than when 
first taken from the ground. This loss of weight 
comes from the water it held ; and we must here make 
a record of the actual loss by drying in the air, or, as it 
is called, in " air-drying." Next, place the soil in a 
pan or flat dish, and place it in a hot oven or other 
warm place for at least three hours or even longer. 
This is " kiln-drying," or fire-drying it ; and in weigh- 
ing it again, it will be found to be still lighter. It is 
now dry soil, and we can begin to estimate the pro- 
portion of inorganic matter it contains. Place a flat 
iron shovel (a fire-shovel will do) over a hot fire, and 



46 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

put the dry soil on it, and let it burn, stirring it occa- 
sionally as it burns. It will smoke, and slowly smoul- 
der away to dust and ashes. When it ceases to smoke, 
and is quite burned up, carefully weigh the ashes. 
This ash represents the inorganic and sandy parts of 
the soil. All the organic portions disappeared as 
smoke. We record the whole experiment in this 
way : — 

8 ounces of fresh soil. 

2 ounces lost in air-drying. 

6 

2 ounces lost in kiln-drying. 

4 

3 ounces lost in burning. 

i ounce of ash, or inorganic matter. 

We can get at the percentages of water and organic 
and inorganic matter in this way : — 



8 

2 

6 

2 


2 -~ 8 = 0.25 
24-8 = 0.25 


4 
3 

i 


3 + 8 = o.37i 
1 -j- 8 = 0.12^ 



Counting out the water, or fifty per cent of the 
whole, we find that in four ounces of dry soil, three 
ounces were organic and one ounce inorganic; or, 



THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. 47 

seventy-five per cent of one, and twenty-five per cent 
of the other. Another soil might show a very different 
proportion, and only in the richest garden-soils in low 
lands will so large a proportion of organic matter be 
found. Select soils from different fields, and from dif- 
ferent parts of the same field, and repeat this experi- 
ment. Try also subsoils obtained by digging down 
below the soil. Make careful notes of every experi- 
ment, and compare them with the notes already made 
of the same fields or gardens. If the amount of ash 
is very large, it is probably a very poor, sandy soil. If 
the amount of ash is very small, it is probably a peaty 
or boggy soil. In all things, test carefully. Leave 
nothing to guess-work ; and, above all, make accurate 
records of every thing done, and at the time it is done. 
Never leave the records to be made the next day. 
Have pencil and note-book always in the pocket, and 
record every thing in detail, and add the date, and 
sign with your full name. This is the true scientific 
spirit and method of work. 



48 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



CHAPTER IV. 

KINDS OF SOILS. 

x. SAND AND CLAY. — In making our studies 
of the rocks as giving some of the materials of soils, 
we paid no attention to the many different kinds of 
rocks. Our observations have shown us that soils are 
largely composed of inorganic matter ; and this matter, 
we have seen, comes from the rocks. It is important, 
then, to get from the geologist some general idea of 
how the rocks are classified. It is not necessary to 
know the name of every variety of rock, provided we 
are able to classify them in a general way whenever 
we see them. 

Get a piece of sandstone, a piece of granite, and a 
bit of chalk. The sandstone, if not in the fields or 
hills near your home, can be found at any stone-yard, 
as it is one of the most common building-stones in 
this country. Granite is used in all our large cities 
and towns, for paving-blocks. Do not, however, take 
the black trap-rocks formerly used so much for paving- 
stones. Granite used in our streets is usually white in 
color. If possible, use a microscope, or at least a 
strong magnifying-glass, in examining these three 
stones. The granite appears to be formed of crystals 



KINDS OF SOILS. 49 

or parts of crystals, thin scales, broken bits, and 
ragged scraps of different materials, thrown together 
in a confused mass. Look next at the sandstone. It 
appears to be formed of small grains, each one rounded 
and worn as if rolled in the water. It is made of sand 
arranged in layers and lines and cemented together. 
Under the glass, the grains of sand can be plainly 
seen. By rubbing, the sand can be rubbed out of the 
stone. Hold the piece of chalk over a tumbler of 
water, and brush or rub it till the dust falls and makes 
the water white and muddy. Let this settle ; and 
then, after pouring the water off, spread some of the 
soft sediment in the tumbler on a piece of glass, and 
examine it under the microscope. The white powder 
appears to be composed in part of minute shells, and 
bits of broken shells. These three samples of rock 
represent the three great classes into which all rocks 
have been divided : the granite belongs to the igneous 
or fire-formed rocks; the sandstone represents the 
sedimentary or water-formed rocks; and the chalk 
came from the organic rocks, or rocks formed from 
the remains of shellfish laid down as sediment on the 
bottom of some old sea. The sedimentary rocks are 
the most abundant in the world, because they are 
composed of the remains of all kinds of rocks. They 
are divided, in turn, into three classes or groups, — the 
conglomerates, or pudding-stones, composed of gravel 
bound together into solid rock ; the sandstones, com- 
posed of sand cemented together; and the shales, 
made from fine silt or mud hardened into stone. 



50 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

Among the igneous rocks are the granites, sienites, 
basalt, trap-rocks, porphyry, lavas, and volcanic stones. 
Among the organic rocks are chalk, coal or stone 
formed from the remains of plants, and limestones 
formed from the remains of minute creatures from the 
sea. The sedimentary rocks may include materials 
from every one of these. The shales and sandstones 
come from the remains of weathered rocks worn down 
into mud and sand, and re-formed into rock. 

Rock itself, whatever its character, is not a soil. 
Even when broken up and sorted out into gravel, it is 
not a true soil. Only the sands and fine silts make the 
real soils of our fields and gardens. It is plain, that 
this process of weathering, sorting, and forming into 
sands and silt, has been going on a long time, and that 
vast quantities of the material have been turned to 
sandstones and shales : the original materials of the 
soils must by this time be therefore completely mixed 
together. This is true, and from this comes in part 
the great variety in all our soils. All this weathering, 
tearing down, transporting and sorting in streams and 
rivers, has been going on for countless ages upon ages. 
The land has sunk in the seas, only to rise again and 
be cast up as mountains. The very floor of the sea 
has been bent and doubled up to form lofty hills. Ice, 
floods, glaciers, earthquakes, and terrible storms have 
mixed the rocks, sand, and silt in hopeless confusion. 
It is quite useless to think we can tell much about any 
particular soil in our fields, from the rocks in the hills 
near by, or deep under the soil itself. All we can do 



KINDS OF SOILS. 5 I 

is to take the two materials from the rocks of every 
kind, — the sand, and the fine dust or silt which we 
will now call clay. The sandstones represent sand 
turned to stone, the shales represent clay turned to 
stone. These two in turn also become sand and 
clay, and these two form the larger part of all our 
soils. 

XI. EXPERIMENTS WITH SAND AND CLAY. 
— Procure from a sand-bank, — or, if you are in town, 
from the nearest stonemason's yard or from the dealer 
in building-materials — a quart of clear sand. Spread 
it out in the sun to dry ; and when perfectly dry, place 
a small quantity on an iron spoon, and hold it over a 
hot fire. The heat has no effect upon it ; and even if 
thrown in the fire, it remains unaltered except perhaps 
in color. Remove the spoonful of sand from the fire, 
and it will be found that the sand keeps its heat for 
a long time. Place a small quantity of the sand in a 
fine sieve, and pour water over it. The water at first 
flows away more or less discolored, and presently runs 
quickly through the sand pure and clean. While wet, 
the sand sticks together slightly. Place it in the air, 
and it soon dries, and the grains are as loose as before. 
Place a little of this washed sand from the sieve in a 
bottle filled with water. Cork the bottle, and shake 
it up. The sand will be moved about as long as the 
water is in motion; but the instant the bottle is at 
rest, it falls to the bottom, and forms a layer under the 
clear water. Place some of the sand in the sun or in 
an oven till perfectly dry. Place three tablespoonfuls 



52 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

of water in a saucer, and then pour carefully into the 
saucer about a cupful of the dry sand. It becomes 
wet round the bottom of the little heap while still dry 
at the top ; soon the water appears to creep up the 
sand, and in a short time it is all wet, and it remains 
wet as long as there is water in the saucer. 

These experiments show us that sand is not affected 
by heat, and that it keeps heat for some time ; that 
water passes through it readily, and, if clean, the water 
passes through the sand pure and clean. When wet 
it is very slightly sticky, when dry this stickiness dis- 
appears completely. In water it sinks the moment 
the water is at rest. Water will rise through it easily 
by capillary attraction. 

Another experiment, taking more time, is to place 
some clean sand in a flower-pot or saucer, wet it, and 
then sprinkle over it fine grass-seeds, water-cress, 
spinach, or other small seeds. Place in a warm room, 
and the seeds will soon sprout, and send small roots 
down into the wet sand. 

These simple experiments also show some of the 
characteristics of all soils composed largely of sand. 
We observed that sand when heated retained its heat 
for some time. Any soil having a large proportion of 
sand, when warmed by the sun, will keep the heat 
after the sun has set or is hid by clouds. It is there- 
fore a warm soil for plants, and favorable to their 
growth. The watermelon and other heat-loving plants 
grow well in a sandy soil. We proved that water will 
flow quickly through it. A sandy soil is therefore a 



KINDS OF SOILS. 53 

dry soil, and for this reason favorable to nearly all our 
useful plants. Water-cress seems to enjoy plenty of 
water, and a sandy soil is therefore unsuited to it. 
Our common garden and field plants object to wet 
feet, and prefer more or less sand in the soil where 
they live. We saw that water will rise through sand 
by capillary attraction : this is useful in any soil, be- 
cause in dry weather, if the subsoil is damp, water will 
rise through the sand to feed the roots of the plants 
growing in the soil. 

However, there are also objections. Sand, we saw, 
is loose, and easily moved about by water. A sandy 
soil is therefore easily washed away by rains, and, if 
too sandy, may suifer great injury by washing in heavy 
storms. Water, we observed, flows quickly through 
sand ; and, if any soil contains too much sand, every 
rain that falls upon it washes down the light organic 
parts of the soil, that are needed to supply the plants 
with food, into the subsoil out of the reach of the 
plants. This washing away, or leaching-out as it is 
called, may be so injurious that the plants can find 
nothing on which to feed, and so perish. A very 
sandy soil may be so light that it is also injured by 
being blown about by the wind. 

We observed that sand, whether wet or dry, is easily 
moved in the hand. This is important in another 
respect. All soils where plants are growing must be 
frequently stirred, to let the air come to the soil, and 
to destroy the weeds. A sandy soil is easy to hoe or 
plough, because the sand is loose. This saves labor, 



54 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

time, and money, on work in caring for plants, and is 
a commercial or business advantage. 

If you carry out the experiment with seeds planted 
on sand, you will observe that the roots of the young 
plants easily find their way into the sand in search of 
food and water. This shows us that a soil containing 
sand is favorable to the growth of plants, because in it 
their roots easily spread in every direction. 

Procure a small lump of pure clay from some clay- 
bank or brick-yard* or purchase a piece of moulding- 
clay from the dealer in art-materials. Place it in a 
warm place to dry, and in a day or two it becomes 
like a soft, impalpable powder. Pinch a little of it 
between the fingers, and it appears to stick together 
slightly. Place some in a bottle of water, cork it tight, 
and shake the bottle. The gray powder floats in the 
water in clouds, till the water appears completely filled 
with it. Let the bottle stand, and it will be many 
hours before it settles and the water becomes clear. 
Wet some of the dry clay, and it forms a sticky, pasty 
mass, that has a soft, greasy feeling in the fingers. 
Spread some of the soft, paste-like mass over a sieve, 
and pour water upon it, and the water will hardly pass 
through the sieve at all. Spread some of the wet clay 
over a rough board, and pour water over it, and the 
clay will cling to the board for a long time before it is 
swept away. Place a lump of the wet clay in the sun, 
and it will be many hours before it dries. Spread 
some of the wet clay on a dish, and place it in the 
sun, and when it slowly dries it will be found full of 



KINDS OF SOILS. 55 

cracks. Place a lump of wet clay in the oven, and it 
will dry quite hard like stone. Put it directly in the 
fire, and it will turn to a red, brick-like lump. 

Place some of the wet clay in a saucer or flower-pot, 
and scatter fine seeds upon it, as in our other experi- 
ment. The seeds may sprout, and try to grow ; but 
they will probably soon perish, as their tender roots 
are unable to push their way into the sticky clay. 

After all these experiments have been performed 
with the clay and sand, another interesting experiment 
can be made by drying both the sand and clay, and 
then mixing them together in equal parts. When well 
mixed, place in a flower-pot, and scatter seeds upon 
the mixture. Water well, and place in a sunny win- 
dow ; and the plants will sprout, and grow longer and 
better than in either the clear sand or pure clay. 

These experiments with the lump of clay show us 
that if a soil consists wholly of clay, it must be a poor 
place for plants. In every rain the water, instead of 
sinking in the soil to supply the plants, would run away 
over the surface and be wasted. After the shower 
had passed, the soil would remain wet for a long time. 
The sun would dry the soil very slowly, and when dry 
the soil would split and crack, and tear the tender 
roots of plants growing in it. The sticky, paste-like 
soil would cling to our spades and ploughs, and we 
should find it hard, slow work to cultivate the ground. 
It would be a wet soil, and, as a result, a cold soil. 
This was proved in every experiment with the wet 
clay, for it felt at all times cold in the hands. A clear 



$6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

clay soil would appear, from all these experiments, a 
poor soil for any plants. We must not, however, be 
led astray by our own experiments. It is not easy to 
find a soil composed wholly of clay. It is usually 
mixed with other things, and then forms a valuable 
part of any soil. Sand alone would be a poor -soil. 
Clay alone would be even poorer still. Mixed together, 
and mixed with other things, they make a part of the 
best soils. 

XII. SAND SOILS AND CLAY SOILS. — The 
fact that clay and sand are found in nearly all soils 
has made it easy to classify soils into six classes or 
groups. These are as follows : — 

i. A Light Sand. — This is a soil containing ninety 
per cent of sand. If it had more sand, and less of 
clay or other matter, particularly organic matter, it 
would hardly produce any useful plants, and could not 
fairly be called a soil. 

2. A Pure Clay. — This would be a soil in which 
no sand could be found. A pure clay soil would be 
wet and cold, and it would not be a good soil for our 
common plants. Such soils are rare ; and what is 
commonly called a pure clay soil is one containing a 
great excess of clay, and only a little sand and organic 
matter. 

3. A Loam. — This is one of the best of all soils. 
Such a soil may contain both sand and clay, as well 
as organic matter. There may be from twenty to sixty 
per cent of sand, or from forty to sixty per cent of 
clay and organic matter. A mixture of pure sand and 



KINDS OF SOILS. 57 

pure clay would not, however, make a loam. There 
must, in all good soils, be some organic matter. 

4. A Sandy Loam. — This is a mixture of sand and 
clay, but with more sand than clay. 

5. A Clay Loam. — This is a mixture in which 
there is more clay than sand. 

6. A Strong Clay. — This is a clay soil containing 
from five to twenty per cent of sand and organic 
matter. 

The strong clay and the loamy soils, with more or less 
of sand or clay, are all good soils, and each will make 
a good home for our useful plants. Some are better 
for certain plants than others, yet nearly every plant 
will thrive in both. The loamy soils are regarded as 
the best, and a sandy loam is generally regarded as the 
best of all. 

It is plain, we must next have some guide to enable 
us to decide whether any particular field or garden 
has a soil belonging to either one of these classes. 
Our only guides must be observation and experi- 
ment. 

First, of the surface indications. What is the color ? 
Sand is usually gray, or of some light shade of yellow 
or red. Clay is often of many colors; blue, black, red, 
and yellow ; and is commonly in dark shades of these 
colors. There are, however, clays to be found that 
are gray and even white. This makes the color a 
rather unsafe guide in deciding upon the character of 
any soil. We can therefore only use the color as a 
help in making other observations. 



58 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

The position of the soil is a good indication ; low 
lands, intervales, and meadows being more likely to 
contain clay than sand. Higher land, the tops of hills, 
and mountain-sides would be likely to have more sand 
than clay. This, like the color, is only a partial test 
or indication, and must not be taken alone as a guide. 

The best surface indication of any soil is its ap- 
pearance after a rain. If the water sinks into the 
ground quickly, and the soil becomes dry soon after 
the rain has ceased, it probably contains more sand 
than clay. If after a rain the soil remains wet for 
some time, or in drying cracks or forms hard lumps, 
it contains more clay than sand. If the soil when wet 
sticks to the spade, plough, or other tool we are using 
to stir the soil, it is a strong clay soil, or clay loam. 
Another indication is the character of the lumps and 
clods of soil on the surface after it has been ploughed. 
If they keep their shape, and do not crumble and 
break up into loose earth, there is more clay than 
sand. If the plough turns the soil over freely in a 
loose mass, it is a sand soil or sandy loam. 

To be more accurate in our investigations, we must 
try a few experiments. Take, as before, about a peck 
of the surface soil from the field to be examined ; mix 
it well, measure off a quarter-part of it, mix it, and 
place it in a paper bag for safe keeping. Take small 
samples of this, say one or two ounces, and repeat 
with the samples every one of our former experiments. 
Refer to the notes made before, and compare them 
with the notes made now, and see how near this soil 



KINDS OF SOILS. 59 

compares with the results we obtained with pure sand 
and with pure clay. For instance, wet some of the 
soil, and roll it up into a lump, and roast it in the fire, 
directly on the coals. Does it turn hard like a stone, 
or break up into black ashes ? Put some in a bottle 
of water, and shake it, and see ff it settles quickly, or 
whether the water remains muddy a long time after 
the bottle is at rest. Notice, when the sediment has 
settled, if there is more than one layer of sand or mud 
at the bottom of the water. Try every experiment 
carefully, and note the results. Afterwards try a sam- 
ple of the subsoil from the same place. Begin each 
series of experiments by burning some of the soil over 
the fire, to find out the proportion of organic matter, 
and then use the ashes to repeat the experiments with 
the bottle of water. 

Besides these classes of soils, — the sandy soils and 
clay soils, loams, sandy loams and clay loams, — 
there are other classes into which soils are sometimes 
divided. These other classes have reference to the 
amount of organic matter in the soil. A soil contain- 
ing a large proportion of peat or decayed vegetable- 
matter left under water, as in bogs and marshes, is 
called a peaty soil. It is easily recognized by its black 
and dark-brown color and by burning. A dry peaty 
soil placed on a red-hot shovel gives off much smoke, 
and burns slowly away, leaving a small proportion of 
ashes behind. The dark, soft soil found under trees 
in old woods, or on the surface of old kitchen-gardens, 
is likewise largely composed of organic matter, and is 



60 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

called a vegetable mould, or leaf mould. Its color is 
a good test, and burning another test. There are also 
smaller classes of soils ; as, a lii7ie soil, meaning one 
composed largely of weathered limestone. The red 
soils of New Jersey, made from weathered sandstones, 
are sometimes called iron soils, because containing 
great quantities of iron-rust that gives the sand its red 
color. 

Farmers also say of soils, that they are light, warm, 
dry, heavy, or cold. These terms refer only to the 
character of the soil ; as, a light or dry or warm soil 
means a sandy soil or sandy loam. A heavy or cold 
soil means a clay soil or clay loam. The sandy soils 
and sandy loams are also called leachy soils, because 
water leaches or soaks through them readily. Soils are 
also classified according to the character of the sand 
they contain : as, a gravelly soil, or one in which the 
sand is mixed with small stones or gravel ; a coarse 
sandy soil, meaning a soil containing more or less 
coarse sand ; and a fine sandy soil, meaning one hav- 
ing sand that is very fine or more like silt and clay. 
Soils are also spoken of as being lean and hungry, or 
rich and generous. What these very odd terms may 
mean, we must learn by further observation and study. 



4 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 6 1 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 

xiii. THE ELEMENTS. — We have observed that 
the soils are composed of organic and inorganic ma- 
terials. Our experiments have shown us that the 
larger part of every farm or garden soil fit for useful 
plants is composed of rocks in the form of sands and 
clays. Naturall) we might wonder if the different 
rocks do not make different soils. Is not the soil 
made from the granite hills of Eastern Massachusetts 
very different from the soil formed from red sandstone 
in New Jersey, or the yellow drifting mud of the Mis- 
sissippi? This is quite true. These soils are different, 
but the differences are not so great as between a soil 
with much sand and one with much clay. Besides 
this, we have observed that the rocks have been weath- 
ered and made into sandstone and shales, and these 
again into sand and clay, so many times, that soils as 
we find them to-day contain every kind of rock. The 
changes in the surface of the earth have been so great ; 
the upheavals of mountains, the action of floods and 
ice, earthquakes, and the slow denudation of hills, have 
been continued so long, — that the stony remains of 
old rocks are mixed together in hopeless confusion; 



62 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

and it would be difficult to decide where the sand or 
clay ever came from, or from what rocks it was origin- 
ally formed. We must go to work in quite a differ- 
ent way, and look at soils from still another side. 

When we begin to observe things about us, we see 
an endless variety of objects in nature. The variety 
of artificial things made from these natural objects is 
equally bewildering. We have already seen that 
every thing in the world is either organic or inorganic ; 
and we know that there are many different classifica- 
tions of things, as plants, animals, wooden things, and 
cloth, paper, or metal things. There is still another 
classification, and that is the classification by elements. 
An element is a single thing that stands alone, and is 
not made of any two or more things. Glass is not an 
element, because it is composed of several things. 
Pure iron is an element ; that is, we are not able to 
divide it into two different things. Sulphur is an 
element : it is one thing only. Water is not an ele- 
ment, because it is composed of two elements. Salt 
is not an element, neither is the air we breathe. Many 
thousands of experiments have been made with all 
the myriad things in the world ; and it is now known 
that there are only about sixty-five separate single 
things in the world, and these things are called 
elements. 

The soil and subsoil of our fields and gardens are 
composed of a great number of different things. 
Chemists have examined these things, and tell us that 
among them all they can find only fourteen of the 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 6$ 

sixty-five elements. Occasionally three more are 
found, but the quantities to be met with are very 
small. We shall not be able to find more than one or 
two of these elements anywhere in a pure state, unless 
we visit the chemist's laboratory where they may be 
kept in small quantities for various uses in the arts. 
We shall not be able to find these fourteen elements 
in a pure state in the soil. Some of them we cannot 
see, touch, taste, or smell. Some of them are very 
common, others are comparatively rare. If we wish 
to know about the soil and its materials, we must here 
be introduced to these fourteen elements, in order to 
understand how they behave, and how they are related 
to each other. 

i. Oxygen. — This is a gas that we can neither see, 
taste, nor smell. It is the most abundant element in 
the world. It forms one-half of all the rocks and 
soils, eight-ninths of all the water, and one-fifth of the 
atmosphere. It is sometimes sold in iron tanks, as a 
gas, for making the lime-light. In soils it combines 
with many elements to make compounds that appear 
to be very different. It combines with iron to make 
oxide of iron, that gives the red color to so many 
soils. It combines with another element to make 
white sand, that forms the larger part of all sandy 
soils. It is a greedy element, and is ready to unite 
with any element that comes near it. So greedy is it, 
that heat and light appear when it unites with some 
other elements, and we call this eager combination 
flame or fire. Animals cannot live without oxygen, 



64 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

and plants must have it in abundance, or they cannot 
exist. 

The chemist tells these few facts, and we now dis- 
cover the meaning and value of many of the observa- 
tions we have already made. / If plants must have 
oxygen, we see the value of the rain and the atmos- 
phere ; for these are composed in large part of oxygen. 
If oxygen is greedy to combine with other elements 
to form new compounds, and these compounds, as we 
shall learn presently, are useful to all plants, we begin 
to see the value of a light sandy soil that permits air 
and water to pass through it and reach these elements. 
We also begin to see why we must open the top of 
the window or top of our greenhouse where plants are 
growing, that the fresh air may reach them, and supply 
them with oxygen. 

2. Hydrogen. — This is another gas without taste 
or smell. It will combine with oxygen, and burns 
furiously with a pale blue flame and much heat. When 
pure it is used in balloons, and in tanks it is often sold 
for use in lime-lights. It forms a part of street-gas, 
as the blue flame of a gas-stove plainly shows. It 
unites with other elements to form some of the most 
important materials in all soils and in all plants. 
It unites with oxygen to form water, and in this 
shape spreads through the soil, dissolving other ele- 
ments and compounds of elements, and making 
them fit for plant-food. It also combines with other 
compounds, to make still other compounds useful to 
plants. 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 6$ 

3. Nitrogen. — This is another gas that forms a part 
of all plants and animals. It is colorless, tasteless, 
and without smell. It is not a poison alone, and yet 
animals will instantly die in it. No fire can burn in 
it ; neither will it burn, like hydrogen, when mixed 
with oxygen. In the soil it appears as valuable com- 
pounds of nitrogen and other elements that form the 
principal foods of plants. It forms the larger part of 
the atmosphere ; and if we wish our plants to be well 
fed, and to grow large and luxuriant, we must have 
nitrogen in the soil. To do this we must freely admit 
the air to the soil, that, by enabling the nitrogen to 
mingle with decaying vegetable-matter, it may make 
new compounds on which plants may feed. 

4. Carbon. — This element forms a part of every 
plant. If we burn a plant, we shall find carbon in the 
ashes left behind. It is very common. Coke, char- 
coal, coal, black-lead, lampblack, and sugar are largely 
composed of carbon. The diamond is pure crystallized 
carbon. When carbon burns, it unites with oxygen to 
form a heavy, suffocating gas, in which no animal can 
live. At the same time, it is of the greatest value in all 
soils, and forms a food for all plants. 

5. Silicon. — This element, combined with others, 
forms common sand, and makes a quarter-part of all 
the solid crust of our world. As sand it is of the 
utmost value in making the soil a fit home for plants. 

6. Sulphur. — This element we often meet in sul- 
phur matches. It combines with other elements to 
make some of the most important plant-foods in our 



66 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL, 

soils. It is yellow in color, and burns with a blue 
flame and suffocating smell. 

7. Phosphorus. — This is a pale-yellow matter, that 
burns so easily that it has to be kept under water. It 
unites with other elements to form valuable plant-foods. 
Without these compounds in the soil, it is difficult to 
make any plants grow. It is essential in every soil, 
and it forms a part of every plant. 

8. Chlorine. — This element is a gas of yellow-green 
color, and is quite poisonous. Combined with sodium 
it forms chloride of sodium, or common salt. Com- 
bined with other elements it is found in all plants and 
soils. 

These elements are called the non-metallic elements. 
The remainder of the fourteen elements found in soils 
are metals. They are as follows : potassium, sodium, 
calcium, magnesium, aluminium, and iron. The po- 
tassium and sodium form, with other elements, impor- 
tant parts of all soils. Calcium, with oxygen, forms 
lime ; and in the rocks it forms a part of marble, lime- 
stone, and chalk ; and as these rocks are weathered, 
it appears in many soils. In one form this element 
makes an important compound called gypsum, which 
forms an important part of our soils. Magnesium is 
found in certain limestones ; and aluminium is in all 
clay, and thus forms a large part of many of our soils. 
Iron we all know. It is the most common of the 
metals, and in various compounds is abundant every- 
where in the earth. In our soils it is usually combined 
with oxygen, as iron-rust, and gives the red and brown 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 6j 

color to the fields and roads. Besides these fourteen 
elements, there are at times to be met in soils small 
quantities of manganese, iodine, and fluorine. 

xiv. SOIL- ANALYSIS. — While these fourteen or 
seventeen elements may be found in nearly all soils, 
we must not think they can be found in a pure state. 
All are mingled together in various compounds. The 
chemist can take a quantity of soil from a field, and 
tell us just which of these compounds are in that little 
mass of loam or earth. Such an examination he calls 
an analysis. The following is an analysis of a good 
soil, as reported by Professor Lupton of Nashville, 
Tenn. : — 

Percentage. 

Potassium oxide 0.2 

Sodium oxide 0.4 

Calcium oxide, or lime 5.9 

Magnesium oxide, or magnesia 0.8-J 

Iron oxide 6.1 

Aluminium oxide, or aluminia 5.7 

Manganese oxide 0.1 

Silicon oxide, or silica 64.8 

Sulphuric acid, or sulphur tri-oxide .... 0.2 

Phosphoric acid, or phosphorus pentoxide . 0.4J 

Carbonic acid, or carbon di-oxide 4.0 

Chlorine 0.2 

Organic matter 9.7 

Loss 1.4 

1 00.0 

This analysis is very interesting as showing the com- 
binations of the elements. Observe how very largely 
oxygen appears mixed with the other elements. The 



68 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

soil is a sandy loam, because there are sixty-four* parts 
of the silicon oxide, forming sand. The clay, or alu- 
minium oxide, forms only five parts in one hundred ; 
and the calcium oxide, another five parts. The or- 
ganic matter was probably the remains of dead plants 
left in the soil from old crops. Twelve of the fourteen 
elements were in the soil, and one of the rare elements 
— the manganese — was represented by a small per- 
centage. 

The chemists have also analyzed plants ; and it is 
found, that, of the fourteen elements in soils, ten are 
to be found in plants. These are carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, potassium, cal- 
cium, magnesium, and iron. These the plant obtains 
either from the soil or from the air. It does not find 
any element, in either the air or soil, in a pure state ; 
neither does the plant show them in a pure state in 
itself. Naturally we might wonder if it is worth while 
to remember these fourteen elements. If they cannot 
be found in a pure state, why try to remember them ? 
Plants contain phosphorus. They obtain it from the 
phosphorus in the soil. Suppose, now, we wish to 
plant a crop in a certain field. The plants need phos- 
phorus. Will they find it ready for use in the soil? 
Perhaps they will, and perhaps they will not. Very 
likely the plants that grew in this field last year, or the 
year before, have taken up all the phosphorus that is 
fit to use. There may be plenty there, but not in 
shape for food. Our new plants, not finding it ready, 
refuse to grow, and the crop will be a failure. If we 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. 69 

think there is not enough phosphorus in the soil, we 
must put some in it. Where shall we get it ? We can 
buy pure phosphorus by paying a very high price for 
it, but it would all burn away long before the plants 
could find it. We look about to see if there is any 
thing that contains phosphorus. The chemist tells us 
this element is in bones. Bones can be used ; and 
we get a quantity, grind them up fine so that the plants 
can find them easily, and sow the white dust over the 
field. The plants find the phosphorus in the bone- 
dust, and attack it greedily, and produce a bountiful 
harvest. Thus, by knowing the elements, we are able 
to find them in various things, and can place these 
things in the soil, and thus supply the plants with the 
very elements they need. Thus we see it is well to 
make the acquaintance of our friends the elements, 
though we may never be able to find them alone or in 
a pure state. 

We might ask now why we may not continue our 
observations and experiments, and find out by analysis 
just what elements are in any particular soil. Our 
experiments have shown us that soils vary greatly in 
the amount of organic and inorganic matter, sand, or 
clay they may contain. May there not be an equal 
variety in the amount of the different elements in 
different soils? There is the greatest variety; and 
analysis will tell us what elements are abundant, and 
what elements are scarce, in any particular sample of 
soil. Observe, that in our experiments we have been 
using only small samples of soils. Even, a whole peck 



JO TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

of soil is a very small part of an acre. As far as the 
sand and clay and the organic parts are concerned, 
our examination of a few ounces of soil may be fair, 
because these things form the whole of the soil. 
When we come to the elements, it is quite different ; 
and instead of three parts we have seventeen parts, and 
the proportions of each are very small. There may 
not be in a whole acre of soil, weighing hundreds of 
tons, more than fifty pounds of one of the elements ; 
and thus the proportion in one pound would be so 
small, we might not be able to find it. Moreover, the 
work of analyzing soils is troublesome and expensive, 
and can only be done by a chemist. Even the chem- 
ist tells us the work is unsatisfactory, because of the 
strange way things are mixed together in every soil. 
In one place there may be a good deal of phosphorus, 
and in places not twelve inches away on either side 
not a trace of it to be found. Plainly, if he happened 
to dig in the wrong place, he would tell us quite a 
wrong story about the field. So, while it seems a capi- 
tal plan to have a field examined by a chemist, it is 
really very misleading. The chemist will tell us the 
truth about a little handful of soil ; but the field con- 
tains a million handfuls, and not one may be exactly 
like another. Our best plan is to try experiments, and, 
if we fear any single element is missing from a soil, to 
add them all, and thus be on the safe side. 

It is all much like the man who declared he must 
have soup, fish, meat, potatoes, beans, lettuce, pease, 
bread, salt, pepper, vinegar, sugar, oil, and coffee for 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. *]\ 

dinner every day. If a single thing was left out, he 
declared he would certainly starve, and would not 
touch his dinner. For some reason he would never 
tell which particular dish he preferred ; so the house- 
keeper, like a wise woman, said nothing, but took 
pains every day to see that all the fourteen things were 
on the table. It is the same with plants. They are 
distressed, and sometimes die, if one of the elements 
is missing from the soil. They want something, and, 
being disappointed in not finding it, refuse to grow, 
and perhaps die, which is a very unsatisfactory business 
for all concerned. Plainly, our only plan is to follow 
the sensible housekeeper, and see that the dinner-table 
spread for our plants contains at all times every thing 
they want. In actual practice, we shall not be obliged 
to put in the soil every one of these elements. Many 
will take care of themselves, the air and the rain and 
snow will provide others in abundance ; and we shall 
really be obliged to provide only three or four. This 
makes the whole matter far more simple and easy than 
we might at first imagine ; and we can now go on, 
feeling sure that nothing is as difficult as it appears, 
if we have the courage to try experiments, and the 
patience to learn. We will next see what we can do 
to improve those soils whose history and nature we 
have learned. We must see what can be done to 
make our soils give us more fruits, more flowers, more 
food, and more wealth. 



72 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



CHAPTER VI. 

IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 

XV. TAMING THE LAND. — When the first set- 
tlers landed in the old colonies along the Atlantic 
coast, they found a wild, virgin soil, covered every- 
where with forests. They cut down the trees, and, 
ploughing up the dark vegetable mould between the 
stumps, planted their first crops of wheat, corn, oats, 
and vegetables. The Indians had planted corn in a 
few places here and there, in openings in the forest ; 
but their planting was a poor, rude work, that made 
very little impression on the soil. For the settlers in 
Massachusetts Bay, along the Connecticut Valley, 
about Providence, around the Dutch settlement of 
New Amsterdam, and in Pennsylvania and Virginia, 
the land was practically a fresh, native soil, in which 
the useful plants were strangers. This new soil proved 
to be very fertile. It contained all the elements the 
plants needed, in abundance, and they nourished 
amazingly. It was indeed a new world, and the peo- 
ple discovered that wonderful new wealth could be 
obtained everywhere as soon as the primeval forests 
were cut down. The people went to work with great 
energy, and cleared away the forests, and extended 
their fields and crops in every direction. 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. *]$ 

This went on for some time, and the crops appeared 
to be as abundant as ever. Then, after a number of 
years, the people began to find that the crops in the 
older fields, that had first been cleared, were not so 
abundant as formerly. If a certain field near the first 
settlements gave a hundred bushels of wheat when 
the land was first used, it would now give only seventy- 
five. That was still a good crop, and more wheat was 
planted year by year. But the crops steadily grew less 
and less, till finally there was not enough wheat pro- 
duced in that field to pay for the seed and the labor 
of cultivating it. There was more land a little farther 
back in the woods ; and the settlers left the old fields, 
and went deeper into the forest, cut down the trees, 
and cleared more land. Again the virgin soil returned 
bountiful harvests, and the farmers won more wealth 
from the new ground. In a few years the new fields 
refused to give these great harvests, and the settler 
or his sons pushed on again farther west. This, in 
time, became the agricultural history of our country. 
The land was abundant and cheap ; and when the vir- 
gin soils refused to give large crops, the farmers moved 
on and on towards the west, in the search of fresh new 
land. Whoever wanted large crops took new land; 
and, as there was plenty of it, the American people 
grew rich at a wonderful pace. 

Here was certainly a curious matter. Why did not 
the old soils keep on producing abundant crops? The 
plants did not consume the soil, and leave nothing but 
the bare rocks behind. The soil remained apparently 



74 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

unchanged ; and yet the wheat, corn, rye, and other 
plants dwindled away to poor, starved things produ- 
cing nothing. If it is true, as we might think from the 
behavior of our farmers, that when a soil refuses to 
give good crops we must find more virgin soil in 
another place, then we must be pretty near the end of 
the world. There is no virgin soil in Europe or Asia, 
and we have not much left in this country. There 
may be some in Africa or Australia, or perhaps in South 
America. Must we move to these places when we 
come to the end of all our new land ? If plants, like 
the man with the fourteen dishes, are disappointed if 
one be gone from their table, what are we to do? 
We look about, and find people have been living in 
Europe for many hundreds of years ; in fact, a very 
long time before this great piece of virgin soil we call 
America was discovered. Clearly, they did not starve, 
neither did they follow the plan of our foolish farmers, 
and go off to find new virgin soil, every time a field 
refused to give good crops. This plan of going out 
West for new land was all very well while this country 
was new : it was cheaper, and there was plenty of 
room. Now we must do something else, for we are 
rapidly coming to the end of our new soils. We must 
look at the European farmer, the Frenchman, the Eng- 
lishman, and German. What did he do with his soils ? 
He repaired them. He learned, in some rude way, 
that something was wrong. He found the plants did 
not grow in certain soils, and he worked over the soils 
till he made them as good as new. He found some 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 75 

of the elements were missing, and he put them back 
in the soil ; and then the plants grew just as well as 
ever. They found the fourteen elements in reach, and 
were satisfied, and grew big and fat on the old, old 
soils. 

Here is a most important matter. Soils can be 
improved, and can be made to bear good crops year 
after year, apparently without end. We read that 
seedtime and harvest will not fail : this means, that 
the time for sowing seed and the time for gathering 
harvests will not fail. But if we fail to do our part, 
the harvests will fail also every year. There is another 
thing we must notice. A good soil kept in repair is 
better than a gold-mine. The mine gives great wealth 
for a short time, and then there is an end. The miner 
gathers all the ore, and the mine is then only a worth- 
less hole in the ground. The fields can, with care and 
skill, be improved from year to year, and give the farm- 
er food (which is wealth just as much as gold) for his 
children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 
and all their children, till there shall be neither times 
nor seasons, seed-sowing nor harvests, forever, world 
without end. 

As there is still some virgin soil left in this country, 
we may stop just a moment to see what must be done 
to it to make it ready for our useful plants. Our ob- 
servations have already shown us that plants will not 
grow in the shade. If, therefore, there are trees grow- 
ing in the soil, they must be removed. There are two 
ways in which this has been done. One way is to cut 



*]6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

a ring round the tree, through the bark, and let it 
slowly die. This would let the light in between the 
trees, because the leaves would shrivel and fall off; 
and in time the wind would blow the dead tree down. 
Another and a better way is to cut the tree down, and 
drag it away. The limbs and bark can be burned, and 
the logs sold to the lumberman. That leaves only the 
stumps in the ground ; and these can be pulled up 
and burned, or dragged out of the field. This hard, 
rough work is called " clearing the land," and has been 
done by our fathers ever since they landed on this 
continent. In many of our States and Territories, the 
work is still going on. It is even done in the old 
States like New York, by men who still think it cheaper 
to clear off the trees, and find the wild land, and thus 
slowly tame it, than to buy old fields that were cleared 
off a hundred years ago. In some places the virgin 
soil will be good, and the work will pay ; but we must 
remember that our fathers and grandfathers were wise 
men in their day, and they found out all the best land, 
and cleared it up, long before we were born. Nearly 
all the land that is now being cleared in the older 
States is poor land, and the virgin soils to be found 
will not compare with the virgin soils our grandfathers 
found way back before the Revolution. 

In our Western States and Territories, there are 
virgin soils without trees. On such soils, all this labor 
of clearing away the trees is saved, and we have noth- 
ing to do but to prepare the ground at once for our 
plants. In the old forests there were very few small 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. J J 

plants under the trees, and when the trees were re- 
moved the ground was almost bare. On the open 
prairie-lands there is a thick mat or sod of grass. 
This we know consists of wild plants, weeds, and 
grasses, growing so close together that the roots have 
become twisted together to form a mass like a thick 
carpet, and called a sod. If the settler sows his wheat, 
oats, or corn on this grass, the seeds will fall down 
between the wild plants, and be lost ; or, if it succeeds 
in growing, will be starved and smothered by the wild 
plants. There will be a fierce fight to see which shall 
live ; but the wild things will be sure to win, and the 
wheat and other good plants will surely perish. The 
settler knows this, r\nd gets out his great " breaking- 
up " plough, and with a strong team of horses cuts 
the sod into strips, and turns each strip completely 
upside down, one slice or strip resting beside the next. 
This is the first step in the improvement of the soil. 
We call the work ploughing, and it forms a part of the 
science of tillage. Whether it is wiser to clear up 
forest- land or break up prairie-land, in preference to 
buying land already cleared and that is starved and all 
out of repair, must depend on a great many circum- 
stances. No doubt, to raise large crops of wheat, it 
is best to take the new lands. To raise vegetables, 
and fine fruits and flowers, we must take the old lands 
near the cities. Which we should do, depends entirely 
on our taste, education, and capital. Even though 
we may never use old soils, or break up virgin soils, it 
is well we know and understand these things ; for they 



yS TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

affect us all, whether we live in town or country. The 
success or failure of our farmers affects the price of 
bread on all our tables, and we cannot say we do not 
care for these things. Whatever is good for the farmer 
to know, is good for all to know. Many people think 
we have too much land, and that we should not cut 
down any more trees, but use the fields already cleared. 
This is a most important and interesting question ; 
and before we have finished our observations and 
studies of the soil, we may be able to understand it 
better than we can just now. 

xvi. TILLAGE. — The settler in the Far West 
ploughs up the wild soil, turning it neatly over in long 
furrows. Before, it was long grass : now it is brown 
soft earth. What will happen next ? Let us look at 
the matter, for the observations we have already made 
will in various ways help us to an answer. First, we 
notice that before the plough passed, the grass and 
other plants hid the ground from sight. Now the plants 
are turned completely upside down, and are buried out 
of sight. Secondly, a part of the soil was below and 
out of the reach of the air and sunlight : it is now on 
top, and fully exposed to sun, wind, and rain. Lastly, 
in place of a thick mat of tangled roots we have the 
loose soil. What will be the effect of all this ? 

Plants are living things. They require air and 
light, or they cannot live. These plants are torn up 
and buried, and will quickly perish. The moment 
they are dead, decay begins. This means that they 
will turn back to their original elements. The com- 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. yg 

pounds of which they are composed will separate, and 
form new combinations with the elements already in 
the soil, the air, or the rain. There will be new com- 
binations in every direction, and nothing will remain 
that bears any resemblance to the original plants. 
Some of the elements of the plants will float away as 
invisible gases on the air, or sink deep into the soil 
with the water that falls in the next rain. Not a thing 
will utterly perish, not an atom will be lost. The 
greedy soil will take up all that is not carried away 
by the air or the water, and will hold it fast till other 
plants seeking for food find it and use it once more as 
part of a living thing. All this happens whenever any 
living thing dies. If it is left on the ground, the larger 
part floats away on the air unseen. Another part soaks 
away into the soil in the ground. If it is buried under 
the soil, the most valuable parts unite with the ele- 
ments in the soil, and make new combinations ready 
for future plants j and the rest escapes in the air and 
water. Disagreeable, do you think? Not at all. 
This is nature's sweet, sure way of restoring every 
living thing to its native elements in the soil and air 
from whence it sprang. Thus we see that the first 
step in improving the soil is to return to it the wild 
plants that occupy the virgin ground, that in dying 
they may make room for better plants, — the potato, 
the yellow corn, and sweet grasses, fit food for men 
and animals, — and that they leave their remains to 
become food for the plants that come after them. We 
see now that the soil is not merely a storehouse of 



80 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

wealth left by Nature for our use, but that it can be 
improved by the wise use of knowledge, and that the 
study of these things is well worth all our time and 
labor. It is more like a bank than a storehouse, 
because we can add to it as well as take away from it. 

Secondly, we observe that in turning over the sod 
with a plough, a part of the soil that was below is now 
on top. We have seen that the soil is composed, in 
large part, of the remains of old rocks. There is in 
every soil more or less sand. This old granulated 
rock can be affected by the frost, the sun, the rain, 
to-day, precisely as in the old past when it was broken 
from some ancient cliffs. The work we saw going on 
at Schunemunk is going on everywhere in the soil. 
The plough turns up the soil, and brings the particles 
of rock we call sand to the surface, and it is again 
broken up finer still. The elements are released by 
the frost and rain, and made ready to enter into new 
combinations. The greedy oxygen attacks it, and 
forms new compounds ready to be used by new plants. 
Thus the mere turning-over of the soil is a benefit by 
bringing new particles of rock to the influence of the 
weather. 

Finally, observe how loose and broken the plough 
has left the soil. In this soft mould, the roots of the 
new plants can push their way in eager search of 
the new food just formed from the dead plants, or set 
free from the decaying sands and clays. 

This is the first great step in the improvement of a 
soil, and it is given the general name of tillage. At 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 8 1 

first it may seem doubtful if there is any immediate 
effect on a sod-land by turning the sod over and expos- 
ing a part of the soil to the air. We can prove that 
there is an improvement in the course of a few hours, 
by means of a simple experiment. Find a plant in a 
greenhouse or the window, — say a small verbena, or 
other quick-growing plant, — that has been neglected 
for some time. A green mould has grown over the 
top of the soil in the pot ; and with a small stick we 
dig this up, stirring and breaking up the soil for an 
inch or two deep. Keep the plant in the same place 
as before, and give it no more light or warmth, and 
it will show in a single day a decided change. It will 
be greener and brighter, and be materially improved 
in appearance. If not too much injured by neglect, 
it will begin to grow rapidly within twenty-four hours. 
Observe, we give no more water than usual : in fact, 
the plant will need less water. We give it no more 
heat or sunshine ; and yet it looks better, and soon 
begins to grow afresh. We are obliged to think that 
the breaking-up of the mat of moss on the top of the 
soil, and the exposure of the soil to the air, does in 
some way improve the plant. The plant itself may be 
untouched, and yet it plainly shows that the work upon 
the soil, or the tillage, has affected its life and health. 
One effect is to remove the crust or mat of moss on 
top of the soil, and to expose the surface to the air. 
Another effect is, that, the soil being loosened, the 
air can penetrate the soil through countless little 
cracks and holes. The water also easily finds its way 



82 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

through the loose soil ; and both air and water bring 
elements that combine with elements in the soil, dis- 
solving some, and forming others into new combina- 
tions. Even the hard sand in the soil is affected and 
disintegrated, and made finer and softer. Thus by 
tillage we assist the air, water, heat, and cold, to con- 
tinue their ancient work of making new soil out of 
old materials. We can see no change in the soil ; but 
the plant is aware that the soil has been improved by 
tillage, and by its improved health and vigor tells us 
what has happened. This work of stirring up the soil 
in flower-pots is one of the surest ways of keeping 
house-plants in good health, and should be done at 
least twice every month. 

xvii. AN ANCIENT TOOL. — The oldest tool for 
improving the soil was probably a forked limb from a 
tree. With this rude tool, which was the first sugges- 
tion of a hoe, the ancient cave-man scratched up the 
soil in such bare spots as he could find in pre-historic 
woods, and made a place for his poor, small seeds. 
No man can tell where or when this work began. It 
is utterly lost and forgotten. Perhaps the limb of the 
tree was broken or cut off with stone hatchets, and 
looked like a in Fig. I. 

Then some more ingenious fellow suggested finding 
a longer limb, and making the shorter arm sharp. 
By this change the crooked stick could be dragged 
along the ground by the long handle, while the sharp- 
ened branch made a rough furrow in the soil. (See b 
in Fig. I.) By dragging such a sharpened stick over 




Fig. I. 




Fig. II. 




Fig. III. 



84 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the ground many times, the soil might be readily 
broken up, and made loose and soft for a few inches 
deep. When and where this change began, we can 
never know. We can only guess that this must be the 
true history, because we find, even in modern times, 
wooden ploughs that suggest this idea. Fig. II. is a 
sketch of a Kooloo plough used in India in this 
century ; and it is very like a forked stick sharpened 
at the end of one branch, and fitted with a third piece 
that serves as a handle. Pins are also added to hold 
the harness of the horse or cow used to drag the 
plough. Fig. II. also shows how the plough was 
rudely shaped out of three pieces of wood, and how 
it was fastened together with a wedge. Old Egyptian 
monuments show ploughs used in that country before 
the Christian era, that were very much like this Kooloo 
plough. It was not till quite modern times, that the 
plough was any thing more than a scratching- machine, 
that merely made a shallow furrow by throwing out 
the soil on both sides. 

In Fig. III. we have a modern American plough. 
Let us look at it a moment. It consists of several 
parts. First is the long beam (that corresponds to 
the longer branch of the forked limb of the original 
plough), the steel share, the mould-board, and handles. 
There are also other details, — as the coulter, that acts 
as a knife to cut and separate that part of the soil 
that is to be turned over, from the part left undis- 
turbed ; the wheel on the beam, that causes the plough 
to run at a certain depth in the soil ; and the clevis at 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 85 

the end of the beam, for adjusting the draught or pull 
of the horses. Let us see how it works. When the 
horses start, the ploughman lifts the handles, and the 
point of the share sinks into the ground. Then 
the ploughman's work is simply to guide the horses, 
and, by means of the handles, to keep the plough 
straight and level. The coulter cuts off the weeds 
and divides the sod ; and the share, as it is dragged 
forward, slides through the soil, and turns the part 
cut loose by the coulter upon the mould-board. 
Here the soil, or the sod if there is one, is turned 
completely over, and falls upon the last furrow upside 
down. If there is no sod, the soil loosened and 
broken falls in a cascade from the end of the mould- 
board. 

A good plough turns the sod completely upside 
down ; it buries the grass or other plants out of sight, 
and leaves the soil loose and broken on top ; it should 
also run straight and smooth, and be easy to pull 
through the ground. Ploughs made and used in this 
country are among the best in the world, and in some 
respects are the very best made anywhere. There are 
many shapes and styles used for different soils and for 
different purposes. Some are for one horse, some for 
two or more. Some are on wheels, and the driver 
rides on top, as in the sulky-plough and gang-plough. 
There are ploughs for turning over wild prairie-lands, 
and for moving light garden-soils ; ploughs for deeply 
stirring the subsoil, and for making ditches. In Eng- 
land, ploughs are often drawn through the ground by 



86 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

means of steel ropes drawn to and fro across the fields 
by steam-engines. 

The plough is the most ancient horse-power tool in 
the world, and it is the first and most important tool 
used in tillage. For this reason it has become the 
symbol of agriculture, and it stands as a mark on 
the letter-heads used in all the correspondence of 
The Chautauqua Town and Country Club. With a 
good magnifying-glass you can look at the handsome 
plough at the top of our Club letters, and you will 
see on the beam of the plough the Club motto, — 
"Results." Tens of thousands of ploughs in the 
United States are at work every year, winning wealth 
from our soil. The results are food and crops and 
wealth, vast beyond counting, and the like of which 
the world never saw before. The plough is indeed 
the symbol of our nation's wealth ; and the men who 
guide our tens of thousands of ploughs are the best 
ploughmen who have ever lived, because they think 
and read, study, observe, and learn. So we too, 
though we may many of us never use a plough, must 
learn to respect the men who do, and, like them, seek 
for Results in work, in reading, study, observation, 
and knowledge. 

The crooked branch from a tree, that the cave-man 
used to stir the soil, in time became the modern 
plough. At the same time, it appears to have still 
survived in another form. Did you ever think that 
the common hoe is only the cave-man's crooked stick 
slightly improved? Here is the long, branch now 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 87 

smooth and straight, and the crotch of the tree turned 
into a flat blade of steel. This is another tillage- 
tool, as old as and perhaps older than the plough, 
come down to us from pre-historic men and times. 
No doubt, for centuries and in many countries it was 
used before the first modern plough was made. It 
can be used by hand, and for this reason it is useful 
in many places where horses cannot be used. It is a 
stirring and breaking tool for opening the soil, and 
making it light and loose. It is also used to cut down 
and destroy small plants that are so impolite as to 
spring up where they have not been asked to appear. 
Some plants are very rude at times ; and the hoe is 
used to remonstrate with them, and show them that 
the way of the transgressor is hard. There are several 
different kinds of hoes ; but all are essentially alike, 
and are used to stir and break up the soil, and expose 
it to the air. A kind of plough with many small 
shares under the beam has been used as a hoe : that 
is, it is used to break up, stir, and pulverize the soil 
after ploughing; and, as it is used somewhat like a 
hoe, it has been called a horse-hoe. Still other forms 
are called cultivators. 

When the land has been broken up by the plough, 
and the sod turned over, it is still rough, and in clay 
soils is often full of hard lumps. The tender roots of 
plants find it difficult to push through these lumps in 
search of food and water; and consequently they 
grow slowly, and produce poor crops. The finer and 
softer the soil can be made, the better the plants like 



88 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

it, the better will they grow. This was learned long 
ago ; and various things have been used to scratch the 
soil, break up the lumps, and make it fine and soft. 
No doubt the first thing used was a branch of a tree 
dragged over the ploughed land. Such things are still 
used ; as when a farmer, wishing to smooth over a 
rough field, cuts down half a dozen small birch-trees, 
and fastens them by the ends to a wooden cross-bar 
dragged over the ground by a horse. From some 
such tool came the modern harrow. This horse-tool 
is now made in many shapes, the most common being 
a wooden triangle armed with iron teeth. In place 
of teeth, metal disks and shares of various shapes, 
and even chains, are sometimes used ; and, when 
dragged over a ploughed field, soon make the soil 
smooth, soft, and loose, ready for the tender roots of 
young plants. On heavy clay lands, where the plough 
is apt to leave the soil in hard lumps, another tool 
called a clod-crusher is used in place of a harrow. 

Beside these various forms of ploughs, harrows, cul- 
tivators, and hoes, there are also the spade and the 
garden-rake. The spade is a tillage tool for inverting 
and breaking up the soil, and the iron rake is for 
stirring the top of the soil about young plants. For 
small work, there are also trowels and small hand- 
rakes. 

XVIII. EXPERIMENTS IN TILLAGE. — Not many 
years ago the farmers in a certain part of Ohio found, 
as many American farmers had found before, that their 
fields produced less and less wheat year after year. It 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 89 

is true, they ploughed their land, and put in good seed ; 
and yet the wheat-crops grew smaller and smaller, till 
they began to despair of raising any more wheat. The 
crop did not pay for the labor spent on it. It seems 
their fathers or their grandfathers, or some other stupid 
persons, had told them that when they had ploughed 
their land they must leave the lumps and clods of soil 
just as they fell from the plough. The idea was, that, 
after the wheat-seed was planted, these lumps of soil 
would slowly break and crumble to pieces, and protect 
the roots of the young plants. At last, just as every 
one seemed utterly discouraged about growing wheat, 
a young man thought he would try a little experiment. 
He ploughed up two acres of land, which was only a 
very poor little field for wheat. He ploughed early, 
and he ploughed well. Then he harrowed and re- 
harrowed ; and got out his brush-scraper, and went 
over the land again and again, breaking up every 
lump, till the soil was as soft and fine as the soil in a 
gardener's flower-pot. He made the field like a velvet 
carpet, and then he put in his seed. The result sur- 
prised all who saw it ; for the very soil that before 
would hardly produce any thing gave a crop of fifty- 
eight bushels of good wheat on two acres of land, 
which was regarded as a great and profitable crop for 
that kind of land. This is a true account of a real 
experiment ; and, should you have any doubt of it, 
you can on any good land repeat the experiment in 
many different ways. The following experiments are 
easily performed ; and all who can do so are recom- 



90 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

mended to select one or more of them, and carry 
them out, and make a complete record of the work 
and the results. 

i. Plant a row of Early Mohawk beans, twenty feet 
long, and divide it into two equal parts, and mark and 
number each half by stakes in the ground. Call one 
half No. i, and the other No. 2. As soon as the 
plants appear, note carefully if there are about as 
many plants in No. 1 as in No. 2 ; and, if there are 
gaps or failures in either, enough plants must be pulled 
up in the other to make them equal. This, of course, 
applies to all these experiments. They must be as 
nearly alike as possible. As the plants come up, rake 
the soil for two feet on each side of No. 1, and leave 
No. 2 untouched. When weeds appear, hoe No. 1 
about two inches deep, but do not disturb No. 2 except 
to pull up the larger weeds by hand. After that, hoe 
No. 1 after every rain, and rake the ground on each 
side once a week on pleasant days. Leave No. 2 un- 
touched except to pull up weeds. When the beans 
are ready to pick, pick each lot separately, and weigh 
each lot. Do this every time ; and at the last picking, 
gather all the pods, large and small, and weigh every 
lot. Keep a record of these pickings from No. 1 and 
from No. 2, and see if there is any difference in the 
total crops of No. 1 and No. 2. There will probably 
be a difference in favor of No. 1, and this will show 
the effect of tillage. 

2. Plant twenty hills Crosby's Early sugar-corn. 
Mark ten of the hills No. 1, and ten of them No. 2. 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 9 1 

Hoe and rake the soil after every rain, or at least once 
a week, about hills No. 1, and let hills No. 2 take care 
of themselves except to pull up the larger weeds by 
hand. After the tassels appear, measure the height of 
all the stalks in No. 1, and find their average height 
by dividing the number of hills by the sum of all their 
heights. Do the same with the stalks of No. 2, and 
compare and record the results. Count and compare 
the number of good ears on each. 

3. Plant ten hills of Early Rose potatoes. When 
they come up, give five of them two good hoeings 
during the summer, to keep down the weeds. Hoe 
or rake the other five every pleasant day through the 
growth of the nlants (Sundays excepted) . This will 
take but a moment, and, if the plants are near the 
house, will not be a difficult thing to do. Record 
the number of times the plant is hoed or raked ; and 
when the potatoes are dug, carefully weigh the whole 
crop, large and small, of each hill, and record the dif- 
ference in weight. 

4. To make a variety in this last experiment, and 
to see if tillage has any money value, plant two lots 
of potatoes, say half or quarter of an acre each ; or, of 
the same number of hills, one hundred hills being a 
good number. Mark each lot; and plough, hoe, or 
use the cultivator on one lot three times, and the 
other lot ten times, during the growing-season. Make 
a careful estimate of the cost of this extra culture. 
Weigh each crop ; and if there is a gain in the crop 
cultivated ten times, over the one cultivated three 



92 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

times, see if this gain at the usual market-rates will 
cover or exceed the cost of the extra tillage, arid how- 
much. 

5. Procure two bean-poles, and set them up in the 
ground about six feet apart. Plant at the foot of each 
a few seeds of convolvulus minor tricolor. When the 
plants appear, number one pole No. 1, and the other 
No. 2 ; and rake or hoe the soil lightly for a space 
of three feet round No. 1. Leave No. 2 untouched. 
After that, rake the soil about No. 1 twice every week, 
on pleasant days, and leave No. 2 untouched except to 
pull up the larger weeds. Measure the height of each 
vine once a week, for eight weeks from the day the 
seeds are planted. Record these measurements, and 
compare the results. 

In these experiments, the effect is more striking 
if the soil is untouched since the previous season. 
Plough or spade up for lot No. 1, but only scratch the 
surface with the hoe sufficiently to get the seeds into 
the ground. These experiments are easy, and the 
results interesting. It is quite possible they will not 
always show any difference between the cultivated 
plants and those that are neglected, but in the majority 
of instances there will be a difference in favor of the 
plants that are tilled. In some experiments, the dif- 
ference will be very small ■ still, it is advisable to try 
the work, because it will be pretty sure to teach some- 
thing. Whichever experiment you perform, take the 
utmost pains with every thing. See that the two lots 
are as nearly alike as possible at the beginning. If a 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 93 

plant is killed during growth in any one lot, a plant 
must be removed in the other lot to keep the balance 
even. Be particularly careful to note all the facts of 
the work ; because there may be some apparently tri- 
fling circumstance, such as the neighborhood of a 
manure-heap, that may quite upset all calculations, and 
render the results quite misleading. 

It is not difficult to see why tillage improves the 
plants growing in any soil. After every rain the sur- 
face of the soil appears to be hard, as if a crust had 
formed on top. In sandy soils this is slight, but still 
it is to be seen ; and on clay soils it is often quite 
thick and hard. Every drop that falls seems to beat 
the soil down ; and when the sun and winds dry up 
the soil, after the rain has passed, the top of the earth 
is like the top of a well-baked loaf. Through this 
crust very little air can pass, and the roots of the plants 
are sealed up as if in a close box. With a rake we 
easily break up this crust, and open the soil to the air. 
The oxygen of the air can then enter the soil through 
millions of minute holes and passage-ways, combining 
with elements brought down by the rain or already 
existing in the soil ; and the plant, finding fresh food 
prepared for it, greedily stretches out its roots to get 
it. No doubt the fresh air thus allowed to penetrate 
the soil also ventilates and purifies it, and makes it a 
sweeter and more healthful home for the plants. The 
loose, broken surface, left after the crust formed by 
rain has been removed, also offers millions of fine 
points on which the dew may condense, and thus more 



94 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

water is obtained in times of drought. A hard soil, 
with the surface beaten down by rain and baked by 
the sun, resists the next rainfall ; and the water runs 
off over the surface, tearing up and carrying away the 
light parts of the soil, and leaving the soil below un- 
touched. Rain falling on land freshly raked, or tilled 
by any tool, quickly sinks into the soil, carrying down 
food from the air to the thirsty plants. This is the 
philosophy of tillage. It improves the soil by letting 
in the air, the rain, frost, and sunlight, to work on the 
sand and broken rock in the soil, and continuing the 
work of soil- making ; it enables the elements to meet, 
and form new combinations suitable for the food of 
plants ; and it makes it easy for the roots of all plants 
to push their way through the soil in search of food. 
The roots do not appear to actually push through the 
soil, but to creep between the small grains and lumps, 
and to feed on their surfaces. Thus we can easily see, 
that in a barrel of nuts there is much more surface on 
the nuts than in a barrel filled with squashes. It is 
the same with a fine soil and a lumpy soil. 

Of course we see that tillage costs money. If a 
field of corn is planted, and cultivated once, it will 
cost more to cultivate it again or three or four times 
more. How can we find out this ? how tell how often 
it will pay to hoe any crop ? Mark off a portion of 
the field, — say an eighth of an acre, — and give this 
twice as much or even three times as much cultivation 
as another piece near it that gets no more care than 
the rest of the field. Gather the crop from each eighth 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 95 

of an acre, and see if there is any difference, and how 
much. There must be a right way and a wrong way ; 
but the wrong way is probably on the side of little 
tillage, the right way on the side of much tillage. 
Experiment will alone settle the matter. 



96 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MANUS — A HAND. 

xix. AN OLD FABLE. — Ever since men gave up 
living in caves and trees, and hunting wild animals for 
food, they have tried to win more food by planting 
seeds and tilling the ground. The ancients, anxious 
to explain every thing, used to say that certain fanciful 
creatures they called gods and goddesses came down 
out of some imaginary place in the clouds, and politely 
informed certain men just what to do to make grain, 
fruits, and other crops grow. Of course it was very 
kind in the gods ; and the men and women who were 
foolish enough to believe it all very properly built 
temples, and wrote poetry, and did many other amiable 
things, to show their gratitude. The temples and the 
statues and poetry are very fine, and yet we know now 
that nothing of the kind ever took place. Not a soli- 
tary idea in regard to the plants or the soil, or the sun 
or rain or frost, was ever sent down from any imagi- 
nary Olympus in the clouds. All that men know of 
the soil, the weather, the plants, or of the universe, 
they learned from observation and experiment. Some 
savage creature, half starved in the forests, saw the 
fruit of a plant, and ate it, and threw away the seeds 



MANUS — A HAND. 97 

before the entrance of his cave. Months after, he 
noticed young plants springing from the ground, and 
in time he ate fruit from these new plants. It was this 
that suggested to him to try gathering fruits, and sav- 
ing the seeds for the purpose of experiment. He was 
the first man of science. He performed an experi- 
ment in agriculture. He planted seeds, and raised a 
crop. Others saw it, and repeated the experiment; 
and in time the news slowly spread from man to man, 
through the great forests. Thousands of years may 
have passed before some other savage genius tried a 
more daring experiment. He tried scratching the 
ground about the poor little plants. He began to till 
the soil — perhaps at first with only his hands. After- 
wards, perhaps long, long afterwards, some other bold 
experimenter tried a broken limb from a tree for a 
hoe. This too slowly spread, and it was found that 
hand-labor or hand-tillage greatly improved all crops. 
Then came a more wonderful experiment than all. 
Some hard-working tiller found that if he took the 
waste matter from the bodies of animals, and buried it 
in the soil, it had the same effect as tillage, — it acted 
as a hand. It made the plants grow faster and larger, 
and bear larger crops ; and, as this was the same as 
the effect produced by hand-labor, he called this 
animal waste manure. In the language of his time, 
manus meant a hand : so we easily see why he in- 
vented the word manure. 

We cannot tell who made this discovery of the value 
of manure. Very likely it was discovered in many 



98 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

lands, and perhaps in some countries hundreds of years 
before it was given this name. The fact that manure 
can be used to improve soils, and thus improve crops, 
has probably been known in China for thousands of 
years. There is no record of the time or place where 
the discovery was really made. It is not important to 
know dates and names in such a matter. It was one 
of those great discoveries that first taught men how to 
win wealth from the ground ; and it probably did more 
to help men to become civilized than any other single 
discovery ever made. No fanciful goddess whispered 
the secret to priests in ancient temples : it was dis- 
covered by experiment. While this great fact — that 
manure placed in the soil improves it, and benefits all 
plants growing in it — has been known for a long time, 
it was only within a short time that men learned by 
experiments why and how it works. 

We go out in the fields, and see grass or oats grow- 
ing in the soil. We know these plants take from the 
ground more or less of the fourteen elements in the 
soil. We know, if the grass and oats are cut down 
and carried away to the barn, the soil is robbed of a 
portion of each of these elements. We know — for 
our worn-out farms in New England prove it — that if 
we go on year after year carrying away all the plants 
that will grow in the fields, the time will come when 
one, two, or three of these fourteen elements will be 
used up, and the plants will grow less and less, year by 
year, and refuse to produce enough to pay for planting 
the seed. In the barn we find a horse eating this 



MANUS — A HAND. 99 

grass and oats, and consuming these very elements the 
plants took from the ground. After each meal the 
horse digests his food ; using a part to keep himself 
warm, and enable him to live, grow, and work, and re- 
jecting all the rest. Beneath the barn we know there 
lies in the cellar a quantity of matter, — unfit for any 
purpose except to be buried in the ground out of 
sight. Chemists tell us that in this matter are portions 
of the fourteen elements carried away from the soil 
by the plants that were eaten by the horse. This is 
nature's grand circle : that which the plants take from 
the ground, the animals return. Thus it is true that 
seedtime and harvest shall not fail. The soil will never 
fail to give bountiful harvests, while plants grow, and 
animals live. The only thing that stands in the way 
is the selfishness and greediness of men, who by the 
means of plants rob the soil, taking all its elements 
away, and bringing none back again. We gather wheat 
and corn in vast and wonderful harvests, and send it 
away to Europe. We carry off thousands of tons from 
our land every year in tobacco-plants ; and then with 
stupendous folly burn it up, and wonder why our soils 
grow poorer and poorer year by year. We may think 
the farmer's manure-heap very vulgar, and refuse to 
think or speak about it ; yet so God has arranged the 
law of his beautiful world : that which the plant needs, 
the animal returns. Let no man call any thing un- 
clean. " Dirt is matter out of place \ " and half the 
science of agriculture consists in knowing how to put 
the right thing in the right place. 



100 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

xx. FERTILIZERS. — When all the fourteen or 
seventeen elements are present in abundance in any 
soil, we say it ]& fertile. It must be noticed, however, 
that in nearly all poor or unfertile soils we shall find it 
is only three of these elements that are usually missing, 
the others being everywhere abundant. When one or 
more of these elements are missing, and we add. any 
thing containing the missing elements, we call the 
material, whatever it may be, a fertilizer. Fertilizers 
include plants, seeds and parts of plants, waste matter 
from animals, the remains of creatures of every kind, 
fish, bones, hair, shells, etc., rocks containing remains 
of animals or particular elements, and waste materials 
from shops and works of every kind. For conven- 
ience, fertilizers are divided into three classes : first, 
living plants or green manure ; second, waste matter 
from animals, or manure ; and, third, all those various 
materials, — ground bones, crushed rock, prepared 
chemicals, blood and slaughter-house waste, saltpetre, 
potash salts, and phosphatic rock and waste matter 
from some kinds of manufactories, — all of these 
receiving the general name of commercial fertilizers. 

Let us return a moment, and recall the elements 
needed by plants, and that are to be found in greater 
or less quantities in any rich and fertile soil. These 
elements are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sili- 
con, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, sodium, 
calcium, magnesium, aluminium, and iron. There are 
also three more, — manganese, iodine, and fluorine ; 
but the first fourteen are the most important, and of 



MANUS — A HAND. 10 1 

the whole seventeen only three will require our careful 
attention. Let us examine them again, and endeavor 
to understand this matter. It is not half so difficult 
as it appears at first sight ; and when we once get at 
the facts, experiment will easily show us what to do 
with every kind of soil. 

Oxygen, we remember, is a gas. It is abundant in 
the air and in the water, and, combined with other 
elements, forms the larger part of every soil, however 
rich, however poor. As it is in water and in air, and 
as it is ever eager to unite with other elements in the 
soil, all we have to do is to give the air and water a 
chance. Tillage settles that. The plough, the hoe, 
the harrow, the 3pade, and the rake invite the oxygen 
to come in and be at home in the soil. So we have 
not to think about the oxygen. There will always be 
oxygen in every soil, even without tillage ; and with 
tillage there will be more than enough for every crop. 
It is the same with carbon and hydrogen. They are 
abundant in the air ; and though these three, oxygen, 
carbon, and hydrogen, form the larger part of every 
plant, we need not concern ourselves about them, 
because every plant in a well-tilled soil, if well supplied 
with water, will find more than it wants of each. Of 
course we must keep in mind, all the time, that none 
of the fourteen elements are used by the plants in a 
pure state. All are combined in some way with others 
in every soil. 

The silicon, sulphur, chlorine, sodium, magnesium, 
aluminium, iron, manganese, iodine, and fluorine can 



102 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

be found in nearly every soil ; and, as the plants need 
only very small portions of each, we need have no fear 
that they will not find enough everywhere. Tillage 
will help to supply these also ; because the elements 
exist in many rocks, and tillage brings air and water 
into the soil to release the elements from the sand and 
clay. This leaves us four elements, — nitrogen, phos- 
phorus, potassium, and calcium ; and these we shall 
also find in any fertile soil. In wild virgin soil they 
are abundant ; and plants in such soils grow wonder- 
fully, and produce bountiful crops. Wild plants, like 
trees, growing in a virgin soil, shed their leaves every 
year, and in time die, and decay upon the ground. 
In this way they return to the soil all the elements 
they took from it, and the soil remains fertile. When 
we clear away the trees, and plant corn, cotton, or 
potatoes, and then carry off the crop, the whole thing 
is changed. In the crops carried away, are all the 
elements taken from the soil ; and the soil is robbed 
of just so much. If we go on planting crops, even 
with the best of tillage, the time will come when these 
four elements will dwindle away. The plants will live 
and grow, perhaps for many years, perhaps as long as 
we choose to plant the seeds ; but the crops will be 
smaller and smaller till at last they are not worth the 
gathering. We must understand that a plant in grow- 
ing must have all the elements in reach, if it is to be 
vigorous and thrifty, and bear good crops. If one 
be wanting, it will bear less and less every year. The 
plant cannot speak ; the soil refuses to tell us, except 



MANUS — A HAND. 103 

by costly and troublesome analysis, which element is 
missing : but we may be very sure it is one of these 
four. If the soil is poor and the crops are light, and 
the business of raising crops is unprofitable, some one 
or more elements are missing, or have been eaten up 
by previous crops ; and these elements will be these 
same four. We need not trouble ourselves about the 
oxygen, the silicon, the iron, and others. They will 
look after themselves ; and we have only to consider 
the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. 
The last, calcium or lime, is abundant in many soils, 
and on such soils need not be considered. Where it 
is not found naturally in the soil, it may be added. 
How to tell whether it is needed in any soil, is purely 
a matter of experiment, as we shall presently see. 
This leaves only three elements, and makes the whole 
matter very simple. 

XXI. PLANTS AS FERTILIZERS. — If we pull 
a living plant, like a pea-vine or clover, out of the 
ground, we shall find in the stem, roots, branches, 
flowers, or fruit, all the various elements it has obtained 
from the soil, the water, and the air. Taken from its 
home in the ground, the plant soon dies. It begins 
to wither, it shrinks and shrivels up, and loses nearly 
all its weight. If we go on drying it by placing it in 
an oven, it loses more and more weight, and finally 
becomes merely a mass of brittle material that readily 
breaks up into dust. Such a green, soft plant will give, 
when perfectly dry, only a small part of its original 
weight or bulk. If we take this light, brittle matter, 



104 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

and burn it, we shall have a little smoke, and last of 
all a pinch of soft ashes. In this drying and burning, 
the dead plant parts with a portion of the elements it 
contained, by permitting them to float away unseen on 
the air. The rest it leaves in its ashes. We can 
gather up the ashes, and put them back in the soil, 
and they will be ready for some new plant growing on 
the spot occupied by the dead pea-vine or clover- 
plant. All the elements burned up in the plants, that 
were lost in drying, and that disappeared as gas and 
smoke, remain in the air, or fall to the ground, and 
thus go to feed other plants. All the elements left in 
the ashes are also ready, when put back in the soil, to 
be used by other plants. A thin, poor soil can thus 
be made more fertile by sowing clover, and, when the 
plants are about one -third grown, ploughing the live 
plants under, and burying them out of sight. The 
green plants will decay, and restore to the soil the 
elements they took from the air and water, and leave 
all their elements in a condition fit for food for another 
and a better crop that is to follow. Besides this, the 
dead clover causes the soil to be light, loose, and 
ready for the roots of new plants. The next plants 
will find more organic matter in the soil than before, 
and will take up the elements left by the clover, and 
grow larger, and bear better crops, than if the clover 
had not lived and died for their benefit. 

This plan of burying live green plants in the ground 
is called green-manuring. The best plants for this 
purpose are pease and clover, and when used in this 



MANUS — A HAND. 105 

way they are fertilizers. Of course the pease and 
clover ploughed under are lost as far as crops of pease 
and clover are concerned ; yet so great is the gain to 
the next crop, that in many places the farmer can well 
afford to lose the clover and pea-plants for the sake of 
the next crop that follows them. The pease and clover 
are rich in the element called nitrogen ; and this, too, 
makes them useful for green manure. By the use of 
green manure, poor and barren soils may be made 
fertile, and even good soils greatly improved. Plants 
thus make the cheapest of all fertilizers, and can be 
used when other manure cannot be obtained. This 
use of plants also shows us one thing more. If a 
plant buried in the soil restores to it the elements it 
obtained from the soil and the air, then all the useless 
plants in our fields and gardens should be at once 
returned to the ground. Suppose we have a kitchen 
or flower garden. We plant pease, and, when the 
peas are ripe, gather them for the table. There are 
the vines standing in the garden, and there are the 
pea-pods. Many people throw both away : the pods 
go to the waste-barrel ; and the vines are left where 
they stand, to go on robbing the soil, or they are 
pulled up, and left to wilt and die in a corner. The 
true way is to pull up every vine the very day the last 
pease are gathered, and to bury them with the pods 
in the ground. We have already learned in our studies 
of climate, that, when a crop is gathered, the ground 
should be planted again with some other crop. By 
using the vines as a fertilizer, we clear the ground and 



106 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

get rid of the old plants, stop the waste of more ele- 
ments from the soil, and return those already taken 
out, and make them ready for the next crop. It is 
the same with all plants. When the mignonnette 
ceases to bloom, dig it into the ground, and plant 
more. When the tomatoes, the strawberries, the 
beans, and other things are gathered, bury the plants 
at once. When the frost cuts down the flowering 
plants in the fall, pull every thing up at once, and 
bury it in the soil. Gather all leaves, trimmings, and 
waste parts of every green thing, and bury it. A 
convenient way to do this is to make a compost-heap. 
Throw the old plants in a heap, and cover them over 
with fresh soil thrown on top. Let nothing green go 
to waste, and slowly and surely your garden will bear 
better crops and fairer and more abundant flowers 
year by year. The soil will become darker and richer, 
and lighter to move with the spade or hoe. In kitchen- 
gardens, nothing should be taken from the garden, 
except the things actually used on the table. If beets, 
turnips, or carrots are pulled, bury the tops ; if cabbages 
are gathered, save the larger leaves for fertilizers. Save 
every thing, gather up every green thing, every weed 
and waste leaf, and bury in a compost-heap or in the 
ground. If, in the fall, rubbish and brush are left, 
burn it all, and scatter the ashes on the ground, and 
at once cover it over with soil. Pursue the other and 
more common plan, — waste every thing, take all you 
can get out of the soil, and return nothing, — and 
year by year the soil will take a sharper revenge for 



MANUS — A HAND. \0J 

the wrong you have done. Good Fortune will leave 
your home, and hungry Poverty will come unbidden, 
and sit at your dinner-table. The cotton-plant is 
valuable to us for its lint, but the lint is a very small 
part of the plant. On many a cotton-plantation, in 
the past, the plants were left to wither away in the 
ground, and the seeds, rich in precious elements, were 
thrown away and lost ; and then the planter wondered 
why his poor, starved fields refused to grow more 
cotton. Planters are wiser now, and the seeds, even 
when crushed to extract the oil, are carefully returned 
to the ground as a fertilizer ; and the plants are buried, 
or burned and the ashes returned to the land, that the 
future crops may not perish of starvation. It may be 
thought just here, that, if animals produce manure, it 
would be better to give them the waste plants to eat. 
This is true, and we shall consider it in future studies. 
But in gardens where no cows or pigs are kept, all use- 
less plants and weeds should be buried in the ground 
or compost-heap just as soon as possible; for, the 
greener and fresher they are, the more they will enrich 
the soil. 

xxii. WHAT TO DO. — When men first began 
to use manure to improve the soil, they knew nothing 
of the elements of the soil. They only knew that a 
field that is manured bears larger crops than one that 
is not manured. Their experiments proved that when 
manure is applied year after year, the soil remains 
continually fertile, and thus an old field becomes just 
as good as a new one. There they stopped; and 



108 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

why and how the manure affected the soil, they did 
not know. We know now that a plant living in the 
soil requires all the seventeen elements, and dies or 
grows slowly if one be absent. The three most likely 
to be absent are nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus ; 
and these three are present in greater or less quanti- 
ties in all fresh manure. It is for this reason manure 
is the best fertilizer for all crops. It brings back to 
the soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium ; and 
these are the very three most likely to be needed. 
The oxygen, the carbon, and all the other elements 
are plentiful; and by adding these three we restore 
to the soil all the plants are ever likely to want. 
There will be other elements in the manure ; but as 
these are not wanted, no harm, but only good, is done. 
One of the most curious things about this matter is, 
that the manure from different animals differs greatly, 
and consequently has more or less of the three ele- 
ments. This is a matter we must examine, but we 
must leave it till we come to our Chautauqua Talks 
about Animals. All we have to do now is to observe 
that the farm-manure commonly made on our farms 
contains the three elements, — nitrogen, phosphorus, 
and potassium ; and it is therefore a good fertilizer 
for every variety of soil and every kind of crop. 

Beside this green manure from living plants, and 
this barn and stable manure, there are many other 
materials — guano, marl, phosphatic rocks, waste matter 
from factories and shops, bones and other remains of 
fish and animals — that contain more or less of these 



MANUS — A HAND. IO9 

three elements ; and if these things are placed in the 
soil, they act as fertilizers. Such fertilizers are called 
commercial fertilizers, and they are very largely used 
in place of manures. There seems to be, at first 
glance, a great variety ; and we may wonder which 
we had better use for our plants. If we read the 
advertisements of the people who sell these fertilizers, 
we might fancy all we had to do would be to buy a 
few bags of these wonderful things, and have potatoes 
as big as watermelons and corn as tall as a two-story 
house. These commercial fertilizers are good, some 
of them are very good indeed; and if we wish to 
raise good crops in our old fields, we shall do well 
to purchase some of them. Which shall we buy ? One 
man says his fertilizer will make our Lima beans try 
to climb a steeple ; and another man shows us beau- 
tiful pictures of wheat as tall as a horse, and other 
wonderful crops, growing on soils made rich with his 
special and truly remarkable chemicals. How shall 
we find out whether our fields require nitrogen, phos- 
phorus/or potassium? How can we tell whether the 
land would produce more if calcium were put upon 
it? If we look at these commercial fertilizers, we 
shall be more bewildered than ever. Not one of 
them gives the slightest sign of these elements as they 
appear in a pure state. The fertilizers look like mere 
dust and ashes, having a strong and disagreeable 
smell; and we have to trust to the dealer in these 
things. If he says nitrogen is locked up in his bags 
of chemicals, we must take his word for it. This is 



IIO TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

what we must do in nearly all business ; and no doubt 
the dealer is a good and honest man, and knows what 
he tells us. Dishonesty never pays in the long-run, 
in any business ; and the real question before us is, 
which of all these various kinds of fertilizers we shall 
buy for our particular piece of land. 

Experiment is our only guide. We have a field or 
garden in which crops have been growing for many 
years, and the soil is worn out. It wants something, 
but what it wants we do not know. Our first step 
must be to find out which element is missing. Per- 
haps the hills about our land are full of limestone. 
It is a limestone country, and there may be enough 
lime or calcium already in the soil. However, we may 
not be sure of this, and we must find this out by 
experiment. If, after we have tried it once, we find 
it is not needed, we can omit it after that. 

We now proceed to lay off a level place in the field 
where the soil is to be tested, and mark out ten 
squares, each measuring one rod on each side. We 
place these in two rows, leaving spaces three feet wide 
between the squares. These empty spaces or walks 
are to be kept clear and free from weeds as long as 
the experiment continues. Each square should be 
marked by stakes at the corners, and properly num- 
bered as in the accompanying diagram. 

These squares are to be planted with the same crop, 
and cultivated through one season ; and each square 
is to be a testing-place for fertilizers. Two of these 
squares — Nos. 2 and 9 — are to have no fertilizers. 



MANUS — A HAND. 



Ill 



This is to serve as a check or guide in testing the 
other squares. Square No. i is to have a fertilizer 



No. i. 



No. 2. 



No. 3. 



No. 



No. S . 



Nitrogen 

and 

Potassium. 


No 
fertilizer. 




Nitrogen. 




Potassium 

and 
Phosphorus. 




Potassium. 



No. 6. 



No. 7. 



No. 8. 



No. 



No. 10. 



Nitrogen 

and 

Phosphorus. 




Phosphorus. 




Nitrogen, 
Phosphorus, 
Potassium. 




No 
fertilizer. 




Calcium. 



containing nitrogen and potassium ; No. 3 is to have 
a fertilizer containing nitrogen only ; No. 4, potassium 
and phosphorus combined; No. 5, potassium alone; 
No. 6, nitrogen and phosphorus; No. 7, phosphorus 
alone ; No. 8, all three elements combined ; and No. 
10 is to have calcium only. 

To perform the experiment, fertilizers containing 
these elements are to be placed on each of the 
squares, and carefully worked into the soil, about two 
or three inches deep, before the crop is planted. No 
rule can be laid down for the amounts to be used, 
but two bushels on each square will be about a fair 
quantity. After this each of the ten squares is to be 
planted with the same seed, at the same time, and 
carefully cultivated through the entire season, treating 
all the squares exactly alike. 



112 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

We will suppose that potatoes have been used. 
During the growing- season, carefully observe the dif- 
ferent plats, and see if any one or more appears to 
be more or less thrifty than the others. Notice which 
plat appears to mature first, and which blooms first, 
and keep a record of the observations. At the end of 
the season, carefully dig the crop on each square, gath- 
ering all the tubers large and small, and weigh each 
lot. First weigh the crops on squares 2 and 9. This 
will serve as a standard of comparison, as it will show 
the natural condition of the soil. If there is any 
difference between them, get the average. Record the 
weights in each lot ; and, just for illustration, we may 
say it is something like this : Average of 2 and 9, 
80 lbs. ; No. 1, 380 lbs. ; No. 3, 250 lbs. ; No. 4, 360 
lbs.; No. 5, 350 lbs.; No. 6, 300 lbs.; No. 7, 220 
lbs.; No. 8, 400 lbs.; No. 10, 100 lbs. This is a 
purely imaginary crop. It might vary greatly in differ- 
ent soils, and this variation is the point we want to 
notice. On the particular soil we are supposed to be 
testing, we clearly see that the land is benefited in 
some degree by the addition of every element. Cal- 
cium helps, and this means that it should be used 
on that soil in addition to any and all of the others. 
Potassium and phosphorus helped the most alone, 
and still more when put together. All three elements 
naturally produced the best results of all. It is plain 
that this soil needs all four, — calcium, nitrogen, phos- 
phorus, and potassium. Squares Nos. 10, 3, 7, and 5 
show us the proportions in which these elements should 



MANUS — A HAND. 113 

be used, and they will stand in this order : calcium, 
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium; the last being 
most important. 

Another and a more simple way to repeat this ex- 
periment is to select in the spring a level space of 
grass-land, and to set up ten stakes in the grass in two 
rows two rods apart, and two rods apart in the row. 
Number and mark the stakes as in the squares. Then 
scatter on the grass, for ten feet about each stake, the 
fertilizers containing these elements, in the same order 
as in the squares ; leaving the space about stakes Nos. 
2 and 9 untouched. As the grass grows, carefully 
observe from week to week the grass about each stake, 
and see if it grows any faster or taller and thicker, or 
shows a darker color, about one more than another. 
These surface indications will tell a good deal in regard 
to the wants of the land, though the results will not be 
so accurate as in the first experiment. In the Eastern 
States nearly every experiment will show that any fer- 
tilizer containing potassium will produce the best 
results with all crops. 

Where shall we find these four elements ? Calcium 
is found in the form of lime, land-plaster, and gypsum. 
We require less of this than of the other three ; and, 
if our experiments prove that it does not help greatly, 
we can omit it. If it does appear to help, one good 
dressing of forty or fifty bushels per acre will be good 
for fifteen years. 

The nitrogen we shall find in manure, in sulphate of 
ammonia, nitrate of soda, guano, fish-guano or scraps, 



114 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

castor pomace, dried blood, and tankage or slaughter- 
house waste. 

We shall find phosphorus in bones of animals, 
bone-meal, etc., mineral phosphates and the so-called 
phosphoric fertilizers, superphosphates, etc., and in 
farm-manure. 

We shall find potassium in wood-ashes, potash salts, 
and in manure. 

These are some of the names given to the commer- 
cial fertilizers now for sale everywhere, and advertised 
in all the agricultural papers ; and each element can 
be found singly or combined with the others, and in 
any proportion that you may need, in some of these 
fertilizers. Observe this most important fact : Manure 
contains all three, and for this reason is called a com- 
plete fertilizer. Many of the commercial fertilizers are 
also called complete fertilizers ; and this means that 
they contain potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen in 
different proportions. 

This is the sum of this whole matter. The soil 
becomes exhausted of certain elements. We do not 
know which ; but by applying all three to any partic- 
ular piece of land, we can tell very nearly which is 
wanted. If any application produces a small effect, 
or only increases the crop slightly, it is already abun- 
dant in the soil, and we need apply only a little more. 
If the effect upon the crops is marked and very plain, 
the soil needs that particular element. Manure, we 
shall find, always improves the soil, because it is a 
complete fertilizer, containing all three elements, and 



MANUS — A HAND. 115 

because it makes it lighter, and adds organic matter 
to the soil. The supply of the commercial fertilizers 
increases every year, as men of science find out how 
to make and use them. Every waste matter is now 
searched for these precious three ; and where before 
many things were thrown away as useless, or buried in 
the ground or the sea, now all is saved and prepared 
for the use of the farmer, that his fields no longer grow 
lean, and his crops perish for hunger. The cost of 
these fertilizers has been much reduced in the last few 
years, and it may be the cost will be still further re- 
duced as science finds new sources of supply. The 
supply is never likely to give out, and each year the 
people see that the old law of nature is right : That 
which comes from the soil must be returned to the soil. 
In this way the land will be a bank that will pay 
good dividends long after every gold-mine in the world 
is exhausted. In this way the soil will supply food for 
countless millions of people, and farms will cover all 
the earth, so that no man can number the bountiful 
crops that will spring up to feed and clothe the people. 
What is our duty in the matter? We must learn 
of these things. Observe, study, and experiment. If 
you own land, remember it is a trust. You have no 
right to rob the soil. You dare not rob a bank, or 
your father, lest you come to poverty or the jail. 
How much more, then, are you bound in honor not 
to rob the soil made by the Creator for the use of all 
his children. If you receive the land from your fath- 
ers, you are bound to leave it to your children in better 



Il6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

condition than you found it. You cannot rob the soil, 
and hope to escape all punishment. Your children's 
children will resent your theft in their poverty, and, 
when they learn the truth of all these things we have 
been considering, will remember you only with shame. 
There is no excuse in this matter. A simple experi- 
ment, well planned and faithfully carried out, will tell 
you what to do. It is not a deep science fit only 
for the schoolmen. It means only experiment, experi- 
ment, and experiment. Try things, and learn, and, 
having learned, do what is right by your soil ; and it 
will return all your labor in full measure, running over, 
and your children will inherit the land as a well-kept 
trust and blessing. 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. llj 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 

xxni. POTTING SOILS. — In our talks about the 
soil, we have so far considered the natural loam, or 
earth as we find it in our gardens. Now, we know 
that thousands of plants live in pots through the whole 
or a part of their lives, and these plants must have a 
soil of their own. We have already studied artificial 
climates in cold-frames, hotbeds, greenhouses, grape- 
ries, and plant- houses of all kinds ; and we learn that 
there are also artificial soils for plants growing in these 
artificial climates. The florist and the greenhouse- 
man call these soils "potting soils," because they are 
used in flower-pots. Some of the men who have 
written books about plants in greenhouses have said 
that nearly every kind of plant, particularly flowering 
plants, must have a particular kind of soil. The books 
written about plants twenty-five years ago, and nearly 
every book on the subject in England at this day, con- 
tain minute and special directions for making soils for 
different plants. They say, for geraniums you must 
have one kind of soil, for mignonnette another, for the 
Chinese primrose still another, and so on ; whereas, 
for nearly all plants it does not make the slightest 



Il8 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

difference whatever. If you have two different kinds 
of soil, you can raise in these every variety of plant 
to be found in any common greenhouse or in any 
window in a dwelling-house. 

Suppose we take a geranium. We wish to have it 
grow and bloom in the house. We might take the 
flower-pot to the garden, and fill it with soil, and in 
this plant our geranium. It might live and even grow, 
but it would grow far better if we prepared a special 
soil for it. The soil of a garden is usually too heavy, 
has too much clay, and is comparatively poor and 
exhausted. If we pull up a geranium in the garden, 
we shall find it has extended its roots in every direc- 
tion, perhaps a foot or eighteen inches on each side 
of the stem. If this same plant is to live in a pot, it 
is plain the roots must be very much cramped and 
crowded. Consequently we must do something to 
make up for this, and we make the soil placed in the 
pot very rich. Take a plant that has been growing for 
some time in a pot, and, holding it upside down in 
the hand, gently tap the edge of the pot on a bench 
or table. The plant easily slips out of the pot, and 
we see its roots have twisted themselves round and 
round in the pot in their search for food in the soil. 
If the plant has been growing in the pot for a long 
time, the soil will seem to have greatly changed. We 
may shake all the loose soil out of the matted roots, 
and find only a small part of the original soil — per- 
haps not enough to half fill the empty flower-pot. If 
we take this old soil out of a pot where a plant has 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. II9 

been growing for a long time, and, putting it in another 
pot, attempt to make another plant grow in it, we shall 
fail. The second plant refuses to grow in that old 
soil, for it is completely worn out. The first plant has 
taken all it could find, and there is nothing left but 
barren sand and waste matter. 

If our geranium is to thrive and grow, we must have 
a light and a rich soil. It must be light, sandy, and 
porous, because we cannot till the soil in a pot. The 
best we can do is to occasionally stir the surface to 
let in the air. It must be sandy, to permit water to 
flow through it easily, and the roots of the soil to find 
their way without difficulty. It must be rich, because 
we have only a very small space in which the plant can 
grow. Its roots cannot extend freely in every direc- 
tion in search of food, and all that it requires must be 
abundant and in easy reach. 

Three materials are needed to make potting soils 
for all the common, quick-growing greenhouse plants, 
fruits, and vegetables ; and with one more we can 
make soils suitable for every plant that grows under 
glass. We will begin with the soil for the quick- 
growing or soft-wooded plants, as they are the most 
numerous, — the geraniums, fuchsias, primroses, roses, 
begonias, chrysanthemums, etc. For the organic 
matter we can take sods cut from a pasture or grass- 
land. These must be cut when green, and piled up 
in a heap in some dry spot out of doors, — that is, 
away from swampy or wet soil. In about three months 
the grass, plants, and roots will completely decay, and 



120 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

we shall have a light, loose soil, almost wholly com- 
posed of organic matter ; and this we store in a shed, 
or in barrels under cover. If we cannot get sods, dig 
up the loose top soil under the trees in the woods. 
This too will be almost wholly organic, because com- 
posed of the remains of the dead leaves fallen in the 
course of years beneath the trees. If we cannot ob- 
tain either of these, get the fine top soil from a field 
where farm-crops have been cultivated ; choosing, if 
possible, a field that has only recently been ploughed 
up from grass. For the inorganic part, use clean sharp 
river-sand. If it cannot be found along the river- 
bank or by the shore of fresh-water ponds, take it 
from any sandbank ; but test it before using, to see if 
it contains clay. To test the sand, burn it as described 
in our experiments. Common mason's sand can also 
be bought at the mason's yard, and may be used if no 
other can be found. Sea-sand can be used, but it 
must be freely washed in fresh water to get rid of the 
salt. It is also best to wash the mason's sand to pre- 
vent any danger from salt. The fine gravel found at 
the side of a road or paved street can also be used if 
carefully sifted. For fertilizers the very best material 
is stable-manure. It should be piled in a heap under 
cover for three months, and occasionally turned over 
with a fork. It will be then completely decayed, and 
will be dry and clean. If this cannot be obtained, a 
good fertilizer can be made by mixing equal parts of 
guano and ground bones. A small proportion of wood- 
ashes may also be added with benefit. 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 121 

These three — the organic matter (old sods or leaf- 
mould or soil) , the sand, and the fertilizer (whether it 
is from the stable, or is a mixture of commercial fertil- 
izers) — should be mixed in equal proportions. The 
materials should be well sifted to free them from lumps 
and from worms or grubs, and completely and thor- 
oughly mixed together when dry. The best plan is to 
store them in a dry place, free from hard frost, and to 
mix them as wanted for potting. The mixing should 
be done on a broad table ; and, if the materials are 
dry and dusty, only enough water should be used to 
merely lay the dust. A wet and muddy potting soil 
should never be used. 

For the ham-wood plants, the orange, the camellia, 
heaths, azalias, rubber-trees, cape-jessamine, etc., we 
use the same materials with the addition of old peat. 
This peat, or meadow-muck, is a black soil composed 
almost wholly of organic matter, and is found in bogs 
and swamps. It must be dug up and piled in a heap 
for a whole winter before it can be used. It must be 
placed in a pile out of doors, in some well-drained 
place, — and for this reason it is best to take it away 
from the swamp, — and left to freeze all winter. After 
being exposed to frost, it breaks up into a fine black, 
powdery soil, that should be stored in barrels in a shed 
or cellar. To prepare a soil for these slow-growing, 
hard-wood plants, make a mixture of the leaf-mould 
and the peat, using one-third of the leaf-mould (old 
sods or soil) and two-thirds of peat. Next mix this 
with an equal proportion of sand. This must form 



122 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the larger part of the soil, and only a small proportion 
of manure is needed. Measure the mixture, and to 
each four quarts or four pecks add one quart or one 
peck of the manure, using with it a little wood-ashes 
and ground bones. 

For lettuce, cabbage, and other small plants in a 
hot-bed or in a plant and forcing house where the 
plants are cultivated in boxes or on benches, and for 
rose-houses, cucumber and melon houses, a mixture 
of equal parts of good soil from a field, coarse sand, 
and old manure or some good complete commercial 
fertilizer, should be used. The soil need not be sifted 
except for small plants; and, if common manure is 
used, it need not be broken up so fine as for potting 
soils. For roses the proportion of fertilizer should be 
larger than for any of the common flowering plants. 
In regard to the actual work of potting plants, we will 
consider that in detail in the next book of the Chau- 
tauqua Series. 

xxiv. MAKING NEW SOILS. — It will often hap- 
pen, that in building a house a bare or barren spot is 
selected for the site ; and when the house is finished, 
it is surrounded by barren, dusty gravel or sand, some- 
times adorned with pieces of brick and other waste 
materials left by the contractors. We must, of course, 
furnish the place, and, if we do nothing more, have 
a rug of grass put before the windows, and perhaps a 
few ornaments in the way of shrubs or trees. Neither 
plants, shrubs, nor grass will grow on such a spot ; and 
a special soil must be prepared for them. First of all, 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 1 23 

see that the place is dry. See that the water runs 
away quickly after a rain; and then from some old 
pasture dig up a quantity of sods, and place them up- 
side down two and three deep all over the spot where 
the grass is to grow. They will in time decay, and 
help form a good soil. In place of sods, cart on the 
top soil from some field, and spread it not less than 
one foot deep over the place. Add about one cart- 
load of sand to every three loads of soil (unless it is 
very sandy) , and add one load of manure to every four 
loads of soil. If old muck can be procured, use one 
load of muck to every two of loam, and use more sand. 
In this way, even out of poor materials, a fair soil can 
be made, and every year it will be improved by culture 
and additional fertilizers. A good plan will be to sow 
it first with clover, and when well grown to dig it into 
the soil as green manure. 

The site selected for a house may be a garden with 
good soil. In this case all the top soil should be care- 
fully dug up, and piled in heaps in a safe corner till 
the last mechanic has left the place. Contractors often 
have a habit of digging a cellar for a new house with- 
out the slightest regard to the soil ; throwing out the 
stones, gravel, and useless material under the subsoil 
right on top of the natural soil, and burying it out 
of sight forever. Such a waste of good soil is simply 
wicked. Nature may have been at work a thousand 
years to make that little bit of good soil, that sweet 
grasses, the wild rose and aster might bloom in it, or 
the amiable potato and cheerful squash find a home 



124 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

there ; and the blundering cellar-digger destroys it all 
in a day, and thinks he has done no harm. People 
who pass the house years after it is built, and see the 
dusty yard, the half-starved grass, the sickly plants, 
know better, and may justly think him a fool and a 
dunce. 

It often happens that a field has a soil containing 
too much sand. It would produce more if richer in 
organic remains. Green-manuring will help ; but if a 
soil rich in organic matter is near, it may be worth 
while to bring some of this soil to the sandy field. 
The best material for making an artificial soil in this 
way is to get peat from a bog or meadow, pile it up 
one winter that it may be broken up by the frost, and 
then scatter it over the sandy field, and plough it in. 
This use of muck for improving soils is quite common 
in some parts of the country, and one or more good 
books have already been written showing how it should 
be done. Purely artificial soils are also to be found 
in New England and New Jersey, wherever cranberries 
are cultivated. The peaty soil of the meadows is 
covered with sand, and on this compound soil the 
cranberry flourishes wonderfully. 

Finally, we can change the character of some soils 
by artificial means, without adding any thing to them. 
In many parts of the country, there are meadows, 
particularly near small streams, where none of our 
useful plants seem to flourish. The soil is rich, deep, 
and black, and to all appearance it is very good soil. 
It is good soil, for it is covered with many kinds of 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 125 

plants that seem to nourish wonderfully. Unfortu- 
nately, these plants are aquatic or semi-aquatic plants, 
and seem to enjoy a wet soil. They plainly point to 
all the trouble. The soil is wet. These flags, mosses, 
and reeds, these rapid-growing water plants, plainly 
tell us just why our farm-crops will not grow there. 
The water lingers after every rain, and in the spring it 
is wet and soppy there. In the winter there are little 
patches of ice, and in long rains the water seeps 
through the grasses and moss in sluggish rivulets. 
These wet places vary from actual bogs and swamps, 
to meadows that have pools and puddles lingering 
after every rain. All are unfit for good crops, and 
must be improved by draining. 

Drainage, or treating any soil so that its surplus 
water will run away, is a great science by itself. We 
cannot now take it up, yet we must learn to recognize 
any soil that needs it. Wherever the common sphag- 
num moss grows under the grass, wherever aquatic 
plants appear, wherever water lingers in pools after a 
rain, the soil needs draining. If we find such a place, 
and'wish to cultivate it and make it produce good 
paying crops, we must get rid of this surplus water 
that clings to the soil like water in a sponge. There 
are many ways of doing this ; some cheap and easy 
but not very permanent, others more costly but very 
efficient and durable. The soil must be cleared of 
water by finding or making some opening where the 
water can escape to a lower level, and thus leave the 
soil dry. A ditch dug through the .field will drain 



126 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 

the soil on each side for many feet. A drain made 
of stones, or porous earthenware pipes called tiles, 
may be made under the soil ; and through this drain 
the water will run away as fast as it falls. Whether it 
is best to drain any particular soil, how it is best to do 
it, are questions that would require a long time to 
answer. First, decide whether your land needs drain- 
ing. Next, see if better land, that does not need 
draining, cannot be bought for less money than the 
cost of draining. If you decide it is best to drain, 
do it well and thoroughly ; for it is a permanent in- 
vestment that will last long years after your children 
have ceased to cultivate the land, or have sold it for 
house-lots. In any case it will always be a benefit, as 
it makes the soil dryer, and consequently warmer and 
lighter and more easily worked, and makes the neigh- 
borhood more healthful. Great sums of money have 
been spent in this and other countries, in drainage- 
works ; and there can be no doubt such works have 
added millions of dollars to the value of farm-lands, 
and driven away malaria and kindred diseases, greatly 
to the benefit of the people who so wisely improved 
the soil given to them by the Creator. 

We have now finished our studies of this singular 
and beautiful carpet that covers the rocky skeleton 
of our earth. We have seen much that is curious and 
interesting, and have gone just far enough to see how 
much there is yet beyond equally curious and inter- 
esting, had we time to study it. We have been look- 



ARTIFICIAL SOILS. 1 27 

ing at the soil as the home of the plants, because 
plants give us food, clothing, and wealth from the 
ground. We have, in our first book of this series, 
seen how the air, the wind, the sun, and the rain 
affect the lives of plants ; and in this book seen some- 
thing of the way in which plants are affected by the 
soil in which they grow. Plants live in the soil, and 
are affected by the weather ; and for these two rea- 
sons we have now examined both weather and soil. 
We can next turn to the plants themselves, living 
things full of beauty, governed by curious and benefi- 
cent laws, and opening to us a wonderful range of 
the most singular and fascinating study. To this new 
and delightful work we will go on in the next book 
of this series, feeling sure that all we have already 
learned will be of the greatest value in helping us to 
understand the ways and habits of our friends the 
plants. 



